Happy birthday, Fr. George
Fr. George, I hope you are able to spend your day with people you love. Know that you are loved by the parishioners of St. Gerard’s. We remember you every week in the prayers of intentions.
According to Facebook, you’ll have plenty of candles on your cake this year (48) – keep a fire extinguisher handy. (haha).
Everyone is invited to add their birthday message for Fr. George by clicking on the “Add Comment” link below. I’ll send a message via Facebook to Fr. George to let him know about it. There are other ways to send him a message also.
Disrespect
Does the Bishop care about the morale of the parish?
Last Sunday, we found out *at mass* via an announcement read at the end that Fr. Brendan was moving on, having completed a month of fill-in for the Bishop at our parish. That’s right, no advance warning, no way for people to prepare themselves for another transition.
It gets even better, or worse depending on your level of cynicism.
Who is supposed to be coming next? Will this be a permanent pastor or temporary?
“No one knows, not even Jesus” as my good pastor friend told me last night. Well, we do know now. Veronica, our parish secretary didn’t know this morning, but I found out from another priest at the 11th hour that Bishop Plouffe assigned Yet Another Priest (YAP), an African fellow to the parish for a month. I didn’t get the name.
Fr. Hamish was kept busy, showing the guy where (and perhaps how) to buy groceries and other life essentials. The African pastor doesn’t have a car, either so taxis are his only means of getting around.
I am looking forward to meeting him, and helping him out in whatever way I can. Our family, having lived overseas in Bangladesh for 2.5 years, has a soft spot for immigrants and visitors from other cultures. Hopefully I can get to know him over dinner – no doubt he’ll be happy for someone to cook. In Africa, men do not do housework. He might even be accustomed to having hired help. Let’s hope for his sake someone comes to clean the toilets.
More on the new pastor later.
So here we are, 2 months after Fr. George left suddenly. Two months of rent-a-priests coming in, and another month coming up. After that, we’re off to mingle with St. Jerome’s for a month, effectively giving Bishop Plouffe another two months to delay the inevitable. It’s not like new options are going to turn up.
The Bishop seems to think all that matters is there is someone here to consecrate mass. If that is the case, we all might as well go to St. Jerome’s.
Meanwhile, parish attendance continues to drop as morale goes unchecked. What the Bishop is doing is disrespectful and uncaring for the parishioners of St. Gerard. Besides procrastinating, we’re neither consulted nor communicated to on the matter. We deserve better, and the Bishop ought to be told this can’t continue from leadership within the parish. Right now, the Parish Leadership Team (PLT) seems the logical choice, in the absence of a parish council.
That reminds me I need to write about our PLT, something I keep putting off.
Enough with band-aid solutions. We need to move forward, which includes dealing constructively with the recent past.
Nelson Mandela, a South African, once said “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”
We need visible leadership, either from a pastor or from a parish executive, ideally from both.
Should you feel inspired to contact the Bishop directly, you can call him at 705-674-2727 ext. 222 or email jlplouffe@diocesecentre.com. If you do, please let me know. I’d like to keep a running total.
Youth Defending Youth – The Ottawa March for Life
Twenty-seven Sault Ste. Marie residents returned early this morning from Canada’s largest ever pro-life demonstration in Ottawa on Thursday. Nine of them were youth who have been associated with the local Catholic youth movement.
A charter bus was organized by Our Lady of Good Counsel parish. The Knights of Columbus, Superior Council 932 financed the transportation for the students who participated. Youth from Sault Ste. Marie, and St. Gerard Majella, have attended in other years. This has happened with the cooperation of various groups and individuals from Sault Pro-Life, Superior Council 932, and teachers from the Huron Superior Catholic District School Board.
The event calls for legislators and Canadians to put an end to abortion in Canada.
The participants heard speeches from MPs, women who have had abortions and Dr. Alvada King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Erin and Bridget Murphy of St. Gerard Magella parish, disembarked from a charter bus at 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning, with their seven friends.
“It was great to be there with my friends and so many other students from across Canada,” said the 15-year-old Murphy. “I have never been part of such a big event.” It was estimated that half of the 8,000 participants in Ottawa were under 25 years of age.
Some of Erin’s photos of the trip are attached to this posting. Comments follow. Maybe you can guess which comments belong to which photo!
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
- They were impressed by the beauty of the Basilica. Fortunately they got a seat. Even the standing room was gone!
- An eerie silence descended on the large crowd as the March passed by the Ottawa abortion facility.
- The Sault Ste. Marie. MP and St. Gerard Majella parishioner, Tony Martin, meets participants on the Parliamentary grounds.
- The Sault bus posed for a photo.
- The Sault youth posed for a photo on the grounds too, and a random crowd of students they did not know decided to jump into the shot! The spirit of the rally was fun, friendly and spontaneous.
A link to a report on the rally: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08050803.html
Mass of Unity
Last Friday, the downtown area was packed with Catholics from all over as the Huron Superior Catholic District School Board celebrated its 10th anniversary with a mass at the Steelback Centre.
I caught a few glimpses of St. Gerard parishioners past, present and maybe future from the SooToday article.
If you were there, please share your thoughts and pictures with the rest of us by adding a comment below.
Marty Frolick (left, guitar), teacher at St. Mary’s and plays at the 5:00 pm Saturday mass. Marty and I used to attend St. Gregory of Nyssa in Echo Bay before it closed. The very talented Claryssa Webb on violin, daughter of Peggy and Bill Webb, former long-time members of St. Gerard. The Frolicks are also a talented musical bunch. Marty’s brother Mark is there too (look for his head is resting on Fr. Hamish Currie’s arm).
My good friend Fr. Eric Pannike (left) and temporary St. Gerard pastor Fr. Brendan Connelly. Is this a photo of present and future? We should know in 2-3 weeks.
Presence
Thought and quote for today from one of my favourite inspirational authors. May our time at Eucharist together draw us closer to one another and to Christ:
Precisely where we feel most present to each other we experience deeply the absence of those we love. And precisely at moments of great loss we can discover a news sense of closeness and intimacy. This is also what the Eucharist is about. We announce the presence of Christ among us until he comes again! There is both presence and absence, closeness, and distance, an experience of at-homeness on the way home.
- Henri J.M. Nouwen
Sabbatical Journey
