New Year's Perohy and Cabbage Roll Sale

Our neighbours at  the Ukrainian Catholic Church of Transfiguration, 629 McIntosh Street (East End), are having a 1 day sale, on Friday, December 28th from 11am. 

Please ensure we have enough for you by calling in your order at 623-6808 or email at bo@ketcha.ca

Christmas Message from Bishop Colli

Merry Christmas and Many Blessings in the New Year!

Feast of the Holy Family: Beef on Bun Dinner and Christmas Ceilidh

Celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family with a Beef on a Bun Dinner and Christmas Ceilidh (Irish style barn dance).  Enjoy an evening of great food, fellowship and toe-tapping tunes. Saturday, December 29, in our church hall. 

Dinner at 6, Dancing at 7:30. Admission for dinner: $15/family, $10/couple, or $7 pet person.  12 and under are free!  Dancing: free admission. Proceeds to support Rome trip and youth group! Call Josh at 621-2200 for more information.

Christmas 2012 Mass Schedule

Christmas Eve (Monday, December 24)

Mass at 5 p.m. with Children's Procession and Presentation (Carols sung 15 minutes before Mass)

Midnight Mass with Youth Group Choir (Christmas Carols begin at 11:30 p.m.)

Christmas Morning (Tuesday, December 25)

Mass at 10:00 a.m. (Carols sung 15 minutes before Mass)

Venite Adoremus! O come, let us adore him!

Immaculate Conception Grotto

In anticipation of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), here are a few pictures of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and Grotto of the Immaculate Conception in Cook's Creek, Manitoba (just North-East of Winnipeg). 

Better known in the area as the "Prairie Cathedral," this church was built by the local Ukrainian farmers and immigrants under the direction of the untiring missionary and architect, Fr. Philip Ruh, O.M.I. 

Work began in 1930 and continued for ten years during the Great Depression until the church formally opened in 1940.  In 1952, the grand consecration took place.  Five bishops, numerous priests, and about 7,000 lay-persons were in attendance.

"Short and Tweet".... The Pope on Twitter

"The numbers of Twitter followers topped 700.000 on Thursday morning, just three days after the Holy Father’s handle @pontifex was announced to the press. The first tweets will be sent by the Pope himself at the Wednesday general audience on December 12^th in response to a number of questions he’s received.

But Archbishop Celli (President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications) says it’s less about topping the popularity charts and more about providing a word of faith and hope in the virtual world where men and women of today are increasingly spending most of their time…. 

"The Holy Father is not looking for popularity – this doesn’t correspond to a pope and it doesn’t correspond to the style of Pope Benedict XVI.  I think he is choosing a way to be present where people are….with a tweet, we don’t resolve the problems of the Church, but I think our duty is to be present. The peculiarity of the new technologies is to create an environment where people are living and in such a milieu we have to announce the Gospel, to announce Jesus – we have to be there!"  (courtesy of www.vatican.va)

Venite Adoremus! Advent Holy Hours

As part of our spiritual program during the holy season of Advent, our parish will be holding Holy Hours of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament before every Mass in Advent  including the weekend Masses. 

Parishioners, guests and friends of St. Peters are invited to spend some time in company with our Eucharistic Lord. 

Venite Adoremus! 

O Come, Let Us Adore Him!

Bishop Colli's Message for Advent 2012

"Prepare the Way of the Lord"

As we enter into the season of Advent, the four weeks of preparation for Christmas, the figure in the scriptures who stands out most strikingly is St. John the Baptist. He is the prophet who summons us with the words 'prepare, make ready the way, open your hearts to conversion.' St. John the Baptist played an important role in calling attention to the people of his time, in order that they open their hearts for Jesus. He asked them to turn away from sinfulness and to open themselves to God's grace and goodness. We know that St. John the Baptist had many followers, and yet in the end, he directed everyone to the Lord.

As we begin this preparation season during this 'Year of Faith' we ask what we can do to prepare ourselves for the great feast of the Incarnation, or the birth of the Son of God into our world. Pope Benedict XVI has urged us to learn more about our faith and to study and pray, in order that our lives can bear witness to Jesus in our world. The preparations taking place around this feast in many ways, are merely secular ones. We prepare gifts, decorate our homes and offices, we prepare special meals and we send greetings to friends and family. These are all important, but the true meaning of Christmas for us is the awareness that God 'so loved the world that he gave his only son' in order that we might be saved. This great act of love and generosity is really beyond our imagining and comprehension. We wish we could be as generous in our actions and endeavours.

The four weeks in Advent give us a chance to prepare properly for the great feast of Christmas. Not only do we engage in the secular preparations, but we know that we must prepare ourselves interiorly. We seek forgiveness from God for our sins through the Sacrament of Penance, we recognize our need to reach out to those in need and those who will struggle in this Christmas season. We pray earnestly for family members and friends, in particular for those in distress, and we direct our thoughts to the meaning of Christmas who is Christ the Lord, with whom we seek to deepen our relationship in love.

These four weeks, marked by the candles on the Advent wreath, remind us that we need to be spiritually prepared in order to prepare a way for the Lord into our hearts. He desires to come and strengthen us in our journey through life with all its joys and stresses. Our prayer, our reconciliation and our generosity will all make this preparation possible. 'Prepare the way of the Lord'. May St. John the Baptistʼs call truly inspire us.

Bishop Fred J. Colli

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