Parish Bulletin – 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time – 14 February 2021

Masses for the Week of 16 February to 21 February

STREAMED MASSES:

TUESDAY:                10 AM             CANCELLED

WEDNESDAY:**   10 AM             George Payne – Lisa Keon & Edward Michaud

THURSDAY:             10 AM             Beatrice Jones – Shirley Gravelle

FRIDAY:***              10 AM             Paul Keon – Wayne & Linda Anne Storms

LIVE MASSES:

SATURDAY                5 PM (SH)    Marian Helen Poirier – Teresa Downey & Family

SUNDAY                     9 AM (SJ)     Intentions of Jim & Alicia Keogh & relations – Genevieve Keogh

                               10:30 AM (CH)   Henri Beaulieu – Verna & Pat Mercier

                                                            Helen & Alice Donlan – The Family

All weekday Masses are celebrated in St. Joseph’s Church.

** Includes public recitation of the Rosary

*** Includes public recitation of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy

LIVE MASSES:

All Live Masses will resume effective this coming weekend. We are limited to 25 people at each one. Please call the Parish Offices to reserve your spot. Looking forward to seeing you there!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

1) Tax receipts for 2020 donations (excluding the online donations which produce receipt at time of donation) are available in the Churches now that the government has allowed us to reopen our offices for business. We thank you for your patience.

2) Rosary: Father Réal Ouellette is planning the recording/editing of the Rosary to be broadcast on various social media. To participate and contribute, please see details here.

Chapelet/Rosaire: Père Réal Ouellette planifie l’enregistrement et le montage du Chapelet/Rosaire pour être diffusé sur les médias sociaux. Pour participer et contribuer, veuillez consulter https://fr.ourabcparishes.com/rosary-project.

3) We will be starting a new book on Tuesday February 23^rd at 7 pm. Entitled Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone by Fr. James Martin, s.j. published by HarperOne Publishers c.2021. It can be purchased online from Amazon.ca or Chapters.ca in either a hardcover or ebook version, or it can be ordered through the bookstore in the Pembroke Mall. If you are interested in joining in, please call or email me at frtimmoylepp@gmail.com and I will send you a link to be able to join in the discussion. Learning to Pray is accessible for even novices to prayer to grasp and will undoubtably help you to deepen your prayer relationship with God. I hope that many folks will take advantage of this opportunity to join the group!

4) Chapeau CWL News: CWL membership fees ($20) are due early in the new year. Kindly use the envelope in your box or a regular one with your name on it and marked “CWL Fees”. It can be put in the collection basket if you are attending church during these “different times” or given to a member (Gail, Pauline, Janie). Thank you in advance for doing so whenever possible. Stay well and stay safe!

5) Card of Thanks:  A heart felt thank you to our many friends and neighbours who expressed and continue to send their condolences to our family on the loss of our dear mother.  To all who sent sympathy cards, flowers, or called, sent online condolences, made donations in mom’s name and dropped off food at the house, many thanks.

To the staff at Pontiac Community Hospital, CLSC, Mont D;Or for their services, Dr. Martin Benfy who made house calls, we offer our thanks. To our mom’s caregivers for their tremendous compassion especially, Ev Manley who without your help we would not have been able to honor our mom’s request of spending her final days in the comfort of her own home.

Many thanks go out to Reverend Tim Moyle for his heart touching homily at the funeral mass, to Pauline Lepine and Maureen Belland for providing the music, to Hayes Funeral Home for their professional services, Tony Dunn for preparing the cemetery, Mike Mainville for serving as Communion minister, and all who joined us in the Church and online. Your many acts of kindness will never be forgotten.

The Smith Family

Scripture Reflection For This Weekend

The lectionary reading for the first Sunday of Lent always refers to the time Jesus spent in the wilderness. Over time, Christians have come to associate the Lenten season with wilderness, and, in many parts of the world, the weather conditions reinforce this symbolism. Winter snow and ice scour the trees, their bark and branches become brittle, the sap barely stirs. Everything about winter’s slow release suggests the not-yet, impatience, yearning. Author Parker Palmer in Let Your Life Speak gets it right when he says, “Before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck.”

Unlike the writers of the gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Markan writer gives little narrative space to Jesus’ wilderness experience. Jesus seeks and accepts baptism from the prophet John, thereby acknowledging the Baptist’s moral and spiritual authority and the attractiveness of his example. The Markan writer tells us that as Jesus came out of the waters of the Jordan, he received a sign that confirmed his identity — God’s beloved child. Then, perhaps before he can fully grasp the significance of whose he is, Jesus is drawn into the bleak and dangerous wilderness. He remains there for forty days and undergoes some test of trial. Finally, Jesus emerges. The wilderness has served as the conditions for a kind of rebirth. Jesus knows who he is, whose he is, and the mission God has entrusted to him. Centered in and on his God, he preaches what he has gained in prayer, fasting and struggle — the realm of God is the realization of compassionate solidarity; the realm of God is now; the time is fulfilled.

Good and gracious God, help us to allow this Lenten observance to work in us as a season of rebirth. Like Jesus, may we come to the knowledge of who and whose we are; and, like him, may we be conformed to your desires for us so that your realm may grow in us and among us to your glory and honor.