Parish Bulletin – 29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 18 October 2020

STREAMED MASSES:

TUESDAY:*              10 AM             Sharon Sullivan – Al Kennedy

WEDNESDAY:**      10 AM             Lucy & George Sullivan – Paulette Demmons

THURSDAY:*           10 AM             Terry Morris (ann.) – The Family

FRIDAY:***              10 AM             Brandon Perrault – Sheila Greenough

SUNDAY:            10:30 AM             Missa Pro Populo

*These Masses will be streamed online, but all parishioners are welcome to attend. All weekday Masses are celebrated in St. Joseph’s Church.

** Includes public recitation of the Rosary during Exposition

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

LIVE MASSES:

Sheenboro:      (Saturday)       5 PM   M/M Regis Venasse – Dianne Mainville

St. Joseph:       (Sunday)         9 AM   Andrew Gribbon – Colleen & Family

Chapeau:         (Sunday)   10:30 AM  1) Leo Beaulieu – Lorraine, Eric Demers & Family

                                                            2) Helen & Joseph Donlan – The Family

PLEASE REMEMBER… If you are sick or have a cough, please do not attend. Remember, the Bishop has suspended our obligation to attend a Sunday Mass until further notice so please stay home so as to not make others sick. Here is a list of common symptoms of the COVID19 virus.

Fever greater or equal to 37.8 Celsius,

• new or worsening cough,
• Shortness of breath.
• Sore throat,
• difficulty swallowing,
• changes in sense of smell or taste,
• nausea,
• vomiting,
• diarrhea,
• abdominal pain,
• runny nose or nasal congestion (different than usual allergy symptoms).

Atypical signs and symptoms of COVID-19 should be considered, particularly in children:

• Unexplained fatigue,
• malaise or muscle aches,
• delirium (acutely altered mental status),
• unexplained falls or functional decline,
• exacerbation of chronic conditions, chills,
• headaches,
• croup,

If you have any of the above symptoms, please stay home! God will understand!!

Collections:

St. Paul the Hermit:   $  285.00

St. Joseph’s:                $  830.00

St. Alphonsus:             $  950.00

Total Online Donations to Date:  $ 8236.05

THANK YOU!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1) The video course studying Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI continues on Tuesdays at 7 pm. No one has registered for the The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis course so I am going to move it to Thursday evenings at 7 pm. This second course will begin on Thursday October 30^th. It’s never too later to register! Please email me at frtimmoylepp@gmail.com so that I can send you the link required to join in either conversation.

2) “Are you called to join other Canadian Catholic women learning how your leadership has the power to transform where you work, volunteer, and live?  Applications are now available for the 2021-2022 Catholic Women’s Leadership Foundation Program. The in-person and online program, facilitated by the Providence School of Transformational Leadership and Spirituality at Saint Paul University (Ottawa) runs from April/21 to May/22. Visit www.cwlfcanada.ca Application deadline November 20, 2020″

3) CHAPEAU R.A.: Annual General Meeting on Wednesday October 21^st at 7 pm. This meeting will be held virtually this year due to the COVID19 virus on Zoom. Anyone who wants to join into the meeting can contact Karie Bissonnette (613-401-2850) and she will send you an invitation link to the meeting via your email address.                                                                                                                           

4) I have received two responses so far to help to offer Catechetical classes online. This isn’t enough!!! We need at least four more people to be able to offer the course for all the students from Gr. 1 to Gr. 6. Please consider helping out with this initiative so that the children of our parishes can receive their Sacraments this year together with those who missed out on last year’s due to the COVID19 lockdown at the start of 2020.

5) We’ve come up with a plan to help recoup some of the revenues we’ve lost with the cancellation of our parish suppers in Chapeau and St. Joseph’s. We’re calling it our ‘Staying Warm this Winter‘ Initiative. We are going to ask every household on the Island to consider making a one-time donation to the parish equal to the amount they would have spent if we could have held them this year. (ex: $15 for each adult and $7.50 for each child under the age of 10 years of age living at home. Of course, people are always welcome to add more if they would normally have spent money on our various draws, silent auctions and games of chance too!)

Every family that makes such a donation will have their name thrown into a drum for a chance to win a handmade quilt! We thank Sylvia Dungeon for donating one to St. Alphonsus and Ethel Jones for donating one for St. Joseph’s. The draws will be held in each respective Church on the last Sunday of November (29/11/2020) at the end of Mass.

You can make your donation either through the parish blog at http://uppontiacparishes.wordpress.com, by mailing it via Canada Post (P.O. Box 40, Chapeau, QC. J0X1M0) or by dropping it off during business hours at either of the two parish offices. Or, you can drop your donation in a separate envelope in the collection basket at any Sunday Mass up to 22 November 2020. PLEASE JUST DO NOT INCLUDE IT IN YOUR REGULAR SUNDAY OFFERING ENVELOPE as 10% of those funds go to our diocese. If it comes separately, we can keep all 100% to help in paying our winter heating bills for the rectory and both Churches.

Thank you for your anticipated participation and support to help us get through these difficult and chilly financial times.

Fr. Tim

ADDENDUM: We have had three face-cords of wood donated to our prizes offered in support of the Chapeau Parish! (valued at $330) The prize includes free delivery if the winner lives on Allumette Island. If the winner lives off-island, it can be delivered for a small delivery fee. Our thanks goes out to J.P. & Jennifer Allard for this generous donation.

5) Attention Sheenboro Parishioners: We are looking for two people to accept to serve on the St. Paul the Hermit Pastoral Council. Joann McCann has retired from her position after serving for the past 7+ years and we thank her very much for her service. If you are interested in joining the P.C., please call Fr. Tim or one of the existing council members to let them know.

6) Speaking of committee members, we are in need of one or two people to step up and join the Finance Committee to represent St. Alphonsus Parish. The committee meets two or three times a year to review parish expenses and revenues as well as to discuss needed repairs or renovations to our buildings and property. Again, please call Fr. Tim if you’re interested.

7) And while we’re on the topic of money… we will be posting a financial report for each of the three parishes on Tuesday of this coming week on the parish blog. But it isn’t happy news. The revenue gap we experienced during the four months of the government-imposed shutdown has created a massive hole in all three parishes. While we have been able to continue to ensure that all the bills have been paid for each, it was done by Chapeau assuming sole responsibility for what are normally shared expenses like salaries and office expenses. As a result, both St. Joseph’s and St. Paul the Hermit now owe a considerable amount to St. Alphonsus. Our ‘Keep Warm this Winter’ campaign is generating some funds for St. Joseph’s to use to pay their bills this winter but we need to come up with some way of raising funds for Sheenboro to be able to do the same. Given their generous support in helping to raise the funds for the church repairs that were completed this summer and fall (thank you once again!!), I have no doubt or concern that they will rise to the occasion again, and I look forward to working with the parishioners in Sheenboro in raising the needed funds. And let’s all continue to pray that we won’t face another shutdown in the near future. Put simply, none of the parishes could afford it! I thank you for your ongoing and future support of our churches.

8) Our sympathy and condolences go out to the family of Mr. Dan Kelly of St. Joseph’s whose funeral was celebrated this Friday. Please join your prayers with mine to ask God to grant to his family the gifts of peace and comfort during their time of bereavement.

9) I will be away from the parishes next Saturday to attend the funeral of my aunt in Peterborough, Ont. I will return late that evening to be here to celebrate the regular Sunday Masses in Chapeau & St. Joseph’s. Fr. Tom Fitzpatrick will celebrate the Saturday evening Mass in Sheenboro.

Scriptural Reflection of this Weekend’s Readings

Some once said that the only things certain in this world are death and taxes. And it appears from our gospel that at the time of Jesus, taxes had to be paid then also!

The Pharisees never missed and chance or opportunity to try and trap Jesus. They were always hoping that he would say or doing something that would trap him and make him look foolish in front of his friends and followers.

Just because we are followers of Jesus, it does not mean we exempt from living in the real world. We go to work, earn our wages and spend our hard-earned money on the things we need to stay alive. Bills have to be paid and we too today have to pay tax to keep our economy going.

People often misquote this saying for the New Testament; money is the root of all evil. The correct saying in the Letter to Timothy is the love of money is the root of evil. There is nothing wrong with money in itself. It is how use, misuse and even abuse money that matters.

In a book called The Little Prince, it says it is with the heart that one can truly see, what is essential and invincible to the eye. In our own daily lives, we need to be aware of what we consider being essential. Is it having more money so that we can spend it on things that we want rather than need? The newspapers and the television constantly bombard with us advertisements. They offer us the message that if we buy a certain phone, drive a certain car and wear certain clothes, we will be happy, secure and fulfilled. This is not true. This is definitely fake news. The real good news is that our dignity does not come from spending money on things we don’t actually need. Our dignity and value come from be created, loved and known by God. The Prophet Isaiah reminds us that we are precious in the eyes of God. This is good news that will last. It is not some trendy statement that will go out of fashion.

Perhaps we need take some time this week to reflect on our daily lives to discover what is truly and deeply essential to us. According Jesus and the gospel what is essential is love, forgiveness, peace, justice and concern for the poor. As we do this, may the words of Jesus from to today’s gospel stay with us; give to Caesar what is due to Caesar and give to God what is due to God.

Parish Bulletin – 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 11 October 2020

STREAMED MASSES:

TUESDAY:*              10 AM             Loella Meehan – Betty Morris

WEDNESDAY:**      10 AM             Margaret Gleason – Sonia & Harry Duff

THURSDAY:*           10 AM             Mary Lapierre – Margaret & Cecil Raymond

FRIDAY:***              10 AM             Brandon Perrault – Sheila Greenough

SUNDAY:            10:30 AM             Missa Pro Populo

*These Masses will be streamed online, but all parishioners are welcome to attend. All weekday Masses are celebrated in St. Joseph’s Church.

** Includes public recitation of the Rosary during Exposition

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

LIVE MASSES:

Sheenboro:      (Saturday)       5 PM   Victor Gagnon – Raymond Morris

St. Joseph:       (Sunday)         9 AM   Mary Spence – Sharon Spence & Family

Chapeau:         (Sunday)   10:30 AM  1) Mike Allard – Patsy Allard & Family

                                                            2) Clora Fleury – Harold & Marilyn Morris

PLEASE REMEMBER… If you are sick or have a cough, please do not attend. Remember, the Bishop has suspended our obligation to attend a Sunday Mass until further notice so please stay home so as to not make others sick. Here is a list of common symptoms of the COVID19 virus.

Fever greater or equal to 37.8 Celsius,

• new or worsening cough,
• Shortness of breath.
• Sore throat,
• difficulty swallowing,
• changes in sense of smell or taste,
• nausea,
• vomiting,
• diarrhea,
• abdominal pain,
• runny nose or nasal congestion (different than usual allergy symptoms).

Atypical signs and symptoms of COVID-19 should be considered, particularly in children:

• Unexplained fatigue,
• malaise or muscle aches,
• delirium (acutely altered mental status),
• unexplained falls or functional decline,
• exacerbation of chronic conditions, chills,
• headaches,
• croup,
• If you have any of the above symptoms, please stay home! God will understand!!

Collections:

St. Paul the Hermit:   $  1115.00

St. Joseph’s:                $  1040.00

St. Alphonsus:             $  1604.00

Total Online Donations to Date:  $ 7,773.84

THANK YOU!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1) The video course studying Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI continues on Tuesdays at 7 pm. No one has registered for the The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis course so I am going to move it to Thursday evenings at 7 pm. This second course will begin on Thursday October 30^th. It’s never too later to register! Please email me at frtimmoylepp@gmail.com so that I can send you the link required to join in either conversation.

2) Congratulations to Madeleine Lois Dawson, infant daughter of Mallorie Chartrand and Spencer Dawson who was baptized last weekend in Chapeau.

3) CHAPEAU R.A.: Annual General Meeting on Wednesday October 21^st at 7 pm. This meeting will be held virtually this year due to the COVID19 virus on Zoom. Anyone who wants to join into the meeting can contact Karie Bissonnette (613-401-2850) and she will send you an invitation link to the meeting via your email address.                                                                                                                           

4) I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how we can still offer Catechetical Instruction for the youth of our parishes and have concluded that we need to take a page out of the new protocols followed by schools and offer it online. So, we require the assistance of a few Catechists who would be willing to work with me in putting the material they traditionally use online so that they can be distributed electronically to the students. These are uncharted waters for us but there is a wealth of material online that we can use to create our own program to meet our local needs. If you are at all interested in helping either to prepare or teach these video sessions with our Catholic children, please contact me as soon as possible so we can decide whether or not to proceed this way or simply take a year’s pause and wait for the pandemic to finally pass us by and in-person classes can resume as before. Thank you.

 
Addendum: I have received two responses so far to help to offer this important service online. We need at least four more people to be able to offer the course for all the students from Gr. 1 to Gr. 6. Please consider helping out with this initiative so that the children of our parishes can receive their Sacraments this year together with those who missed out on last year’s due to the COVID19 lockdown at the start of 2020.

5) We’ve come up with a plan to help recoup some of the revenues we’ve lost with the cancellation of our parish suppers in Chapeau and St. Joseph’s. We’re calling it our ‘Staying Warm this Winter‘ Initiative. We are going to ask every household on the Island to consider making a one-time donation to the parish equal to the amount they would have spent if we could have held them this year. (ex: $15 for each adult and $7.50 for each child under the age of 10 years of age living at home. Of course, people are always welcome to add more if they would normally have spent money on our various draws, silent auctions and games of chance too!)

Every family that makes such a donation will have their name thrown into a drum for a chance to win a handmade quilt! We thank Sylvia Dungeon for donating one to St. Alphonsus and Ethel Jones for donating one for St. Joseph’s. The draws will be held in each respective Church on the last Sunday of November (29/11/2020) at the end of Mass.

You can make your donation either through the parish blog at http://uppontiacparishes.wordpress.com, by mailing it via Canada Post (P.O. Box 40, Chapeau, QC. J0X1M0) or by dropping it off during business hours at either of the two parish offices. Or, you can drop your donation in a separate envelope in the collection basket at any Sunday Mass up to 22 November 2020. PLEASE JUST DO NOT INCLUDE IT IN YOUR REGULAR SUNDAY OFFERING ENVELOPE as 10% of those funds go to our diocese. If it comes separately, we can keep all 100% to help in paying our winter heating bills for the rectory and both Churches.

Thank you for your anticipated participation and support to help us get through these difficult and chilly financial times.

Fr. Tim

6) Please note that our offices will be closed this Monday for the long Thanksgiving weekend.

7) HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 2020 hasn’t really given us much to be thankful for, what with the COVID pandemic and all, but at least there’s one thing we can give thanks for this weekend: Thank God you weren’t born a turkey or a moose!

8) Don’t forget to pray for the safety of all our various hunters who have gone into the bush this weekend with the opening of the moose hunt. Let’s pray that everyone comes home safe and sound… and with a moose in the back of the truck!

9) Our prayers and sympathy go out to the families of Donald St-Cyr and Therese Gagnon whose funerals were celebrated in the Chapeau Church this past week.

Scriptural Reflection of this Weekend’s Readings

Encountering Christ:

1. Accepting the Gift: God is never outdone in generosity. How consoling to know his generosity is not dependent upon what we deserve but rather on his abundant goodness, love, and desire for our happiness. No one who had been invited to the feast was there because of merit or status, but purely by decree of the king’s initiative. Christ himself is the banquet of divine life and abundant grace. We don’t deserve to receive him (“Lord, I am not worthy,” Matthew 8:8). It is his longing to share the joy of his existence with us that overflows in bountiful generosity. Our first duty in response to God’s loving generosity is to accept his gift of grace. Let us run forward, embracing the opportunity to receive grace through the regular reception of the Eucharist, frequent confession, and openness to his will. 

2. Called and Chosen: Three times, the king dispatched servants to extend his invitation far and wide to anyone interested. We see that many were foolish and self-absorbed, preoccupied with their worldly pursuits. Attached to good things (work, well-being, and profitability), they sadly rejected the opportunity for something far better. Here lies the mystery and drama of our human freedom. We overlook admitting how indebted we are to God’s goodness as the cause and purpose of our very being. In our own lives, self-reliance, distraction, and busyness can lead us to consider God’s plans an interruption to our own, and forget that ours have no meaning if not centered and focused in his. The possibility that we could reject God’s invitation should motivate us to continually care for our life of grace in friendship with Christ and share with others an invitation to the feast. 

3. Christian Joy: Wedding feasts are a time for great joy, celebration, and happiness. Jesus often used this favored image for heaven—for his kingdom. It describes what he longs to share and promises to us if we follow the way of faithful obedience to his will. The joy that awaits us will far exceed and outlast any suffering we may carry in this life. Hope in the Resurrection and life with God for all eternity should fill us with overwhelming joy and happiness. How does my faith and hope for heaven influence my witness to living as a joy-filled Christian before the challenges in this fallen world? 

Conversing with Christ: My Lord, you want to offer me every good gift and grace I need to draw closer to you as the source of my happiness. You offer your intimate friendship to every single person. Your goodness, love, and mercy are for everyone, including me. Please forgive me for the moments I have rejected you out of foolishness over my own concerns. You know how hard it is for me to overcome attachments to seeking security in my achievements, in how others perceive me, and in worldly comforts. Help me to respond freely to seeking your grace and expressing my gratitude with a generous and joy-filled heart each day. 

Resolution: Lord, today, by your grace, I will spend a moment contemplating and fostering my longing for heaven. With hope in the Resurrection, I will seek to give witness to living with Christian joy in responding to any challenge today. 

For Further Reflection: The Kingdom Without End: A Retreat Guide on Christ the King (https://rcspirituality.org/retreat_guide/the-kingdom-without-end-a-retreat-guide-on-christ-the-king/).