Our Parish Update - Tuesday, June 30, 2020

   
We rejoice that we can once again open our church doors for worship and prayer.  Permission for reopening was given last week by the Department of Health, reinforced by Archdiocesan Guidelines.
We are working to ensure that St.  Pius X Church is safe and welcoming for our parish family as true for our homes.

We are committed to both your spiritual care and physical well being. You may  feel uncomfortable with  some of the safety protocols, but they are “grounded in the very best of our faith tradition . . .. loving God and your neighbour as yourself.”  (page 3*)

Archbishop Hundt states that “all people of the Archdiocese are dispensed from their obligation to attend Sunday Mass and those who are elderly, frail, or at a higher risk of complications from COVID 19 are encouraged to not attend public worship at this time.”  He  encourages some of us to continue with online Masses and prayer as we have done in recent weeks.

Each pastor is ultimately responsible for implementing  these guidelines. After the approval of the Archdiocese, a decision to start public Mass and other kinds of workshop follows.

As pastor,  in consultation with parish staff and our hospitality ministry, we have made the
following decisions.

•            We will gradually restore public Masses.

•            Our weekend Masses will be Saturday afternoon at 4:45 pm and Sunday at 10:00 am.

•            Our weekday Masses will be Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 9:30 am.

•            A maximum of 50 people are permitted in the church building at one time.  This number includes  the priest, lector, organist/song leader and volunteers. However, we are reasonably confident that we’ve a seat for everyone!

•            To  ensure  this  limit  of  people,  we  will  have  a  registration  process  (for  
weekend  Masses  times).   After notification of our first weekend Masses, please phone the office - 754-0170, at regular office hours.  You will be asked to give your name, phone number and/or e-mail, and which Mass you plan on attending. Registration will close on Friday at 12 noon.

•            There will only be one door to enter (main church/glass doors) and a different door to exit.

•            When you arrive, you will be greeted and asked to line up (physical distancing) in
order to check in.  Face masks are recommended. There will be a copy posted of the COVID-19 Assessment Questions (page 7). You will be asked if you read it. At the check-in table, you will be asked to sanitize your hands, give your full name and contact information.  Then you will be escorted to a pew.  It may not be where you regularly sit, as we have to designate seats for physical distancing.  Seating will only be in the main church, not Chapel. When you register, please advise us if you have mobility issues that allows for a seat nearer the front of the church.

•            While respecting  the sanctity of receiving Holy Communion, there are also safety
protocols to protect both you and the priest (pages 16-17*).  We will be giving further information about this in the Sunday bulletins and Tuesday Updates.

•            We will be exiting the building section by section and  by a different door (physical
distancing). Please do not linger at the door for conversation.

•            There will be a complete disinfection of the church building between every Church
event including each Mass using hospital grade cleaning materials.

•            All hymn books and paper materials have been removed from the church.

•            We will continue with our digital bulletins. Contact the parish office about other
common church materials like Living with Christ.

•            Tuesday  Updates,  Sunday  bulletins,  and  other  archived  matter  including  a  
copy  of  the Archdiocesan guidelines  will continue to be available at www.spx.ca, our website.

•            Please reach out to family and friends who are not digitally connected.

Bring to Mass:

•            Your loving presence ready to pray!
•            A face mask that is required at least (for reception of Holy Communion).
•            A sanitizer of your choice.
•            The parish will provide these materials of face mask and sanitizer in the case of
urgent need.
•            Your own Living with Christ or another optional selection of readings.

Whether you gather with us in the church building or pray and worship at home, we are one faith community, united in faith, hope and love.
St. Pius X, pray for us.

Staff
St. Pius X Parish
*Pages   Refers to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese
Guidelines for Parish Church and Pastoral Ministry at Alert Level 2

       
Mass at the Basilica will be live streamed each morning at 9:00 a.m., Sunday to Saturday. To view
the live stream Mass, click http://www.thebasilica.net and then click Live Stream.

Mary Queen of the World Parish (Visit www.mqwp.org) and St. Peter's Parish (Visit www.saintpp.com)
Available on our parish webpages and the myParish app: Daily Mass (by 9:30 a.m. each morning unless
otherwise stated),  Stations of the Cross,  Message from Fr. Wayne Dohey (updated regularly).

St. Teresa's Parish (Visit www.stteresa.ca)
or Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdZzmoTE3uLj59EX2Ciz2kA

Fr. Paul will be streaming from our FB page, Holy Trinity, St. Agnes' & St. Michael's Parishes
(https://www.facebook.com/Holy-Trinity-St-Agnes-St-Michaels-Parishes-114623136582076/?modal=admin_to
 do_tour) on Sunday at 10:30am.

St. Patrick's Parish (Visit www.stpatrickschurch.ca)

 
You're invited to join St. Pius X in their Drive Thru Adoration for the first Friday this month on Friday, July 3, 2020 at 7:00 - 8:00 pm and their regularly scheduled Drive Thru Adoration on Sundays at 3:00 pm.

1.           A famous landlord was renowned for the late rising, usually taking his breakfast when the rest of the family were having lunch.  Asked one day to account for his habit he replied: “The fact is I sleep very slowly.”

2.           A Dublin firm sent the following letter to customers whose accounts were overdue:   “Man is dust.  Dust settles.  Be a man”.

3.           A Meath farmer’s wife collected five thousand pounds insurance on her husband’s death. When she was being presented with the cheque she sighed:
“Oh dear, I’d give a thousand pounds to have my poor, dear husband back.”

SOURCE: The Wit of the Irish, Sean McCann (editor), Sphere Books, Ltd., 1968, page133

 
The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today.  Grace is the overflowing favour of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed, “in much patience, in tribulation, in needs, in distresses”
– that is where our patience is tested (2 Cor. 6:4).   Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? Are you saying to yourself, “Oh well, I won’t count this time? It is no question of praying and asking God to help you – it is taking the grace of God now.  We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible.  Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God.  Don’t say, “I will endure this until I can get away and pray.” Pray now – draw on the grace of God in your moment of need.  Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action on your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God’s grace through prayer. “…in stripes, in  Imprisonments, in tumults, in labours…” (2 Cor. 6:5) – in all these things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to others that your are a miracle of God…

SOURCE:   Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

 
Of all the battles that the Newfoundland Regiment fought during the First World War, none was as devastating or as defining as the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The Regiment's tragic advance at  Beaumont  Hamel  on the  morning of  July 1,  1916  became  an enduring symbol of its valour and of its terrible wartime sacrifices.
The events of that day were forever seared into the cultural memory of the Newfoundland and Labrador people.   ( www.heritage.nf.ca)

 
The short biography of Private Leo Shortall and excerpt from one of his letters home can give a glimpse into the lives of our Newfoundlanders who died on July 1, 1916.

At age 18, Shortall enlisted in St. John's, (Old Loyola 1913) 1st Battalion, Royal Newfoundland Regiment Newfoundland, sailed for England, arriving on 25 August 1916. He joined his unit on 8 September of that year and took part in many of his regiment's engagements. On 14 April 1917 he suffered multiple wounds in action on Vimy Ridge. His casualty form reveals the general nature of his injuries — “severe gun shot wounds to left thigh, pelvis and penis”.   He was invalided to the United Kingdom and admitted to King George's Hospital, London on 25 April 1917. He was transferred to No. 3 London General Hospital (Wandsworth) on 25 January 1918. He had been declared “dangerously ill” in mid-summer of 1917, suffered a serious relapse (“very dangerously ill”) on 24 April 1918 and died five days later.

His own words in a letter dated 2 May 1917, reveal a courageous acceptance devoid of self-pity.

‘Well here I am in London with six wounds and a broken leg. Fritz got me pretty hard when he did get me. I have one in my right hip, one in my right groin, one in the right side of my stomach, one in my left thigh and one in my left arm. My right leg is broken close to the body.

We made a charge on the 15 of April and just as we got as far as we were to go — the German second line — I heard the rattle of a machine gun at close quarters and then something struck me like the kick of a horse. It turned me right over on my back. I was lying out two days and two nights before the Red Cross got me. You can guess what I suffered. You don't know what thirst is yet and I hope to God you never will. Remember me to all the boys and Fathers.’

In November of 1917, he writes:

‘Well I am doing OK now and with God's help the turn has come; of course sometimes I feel pretty poorly but that is to be expected.’

I am sending you a picture of one of the Red Cross men, a Mr. Close, who carried me off the train to the ambulance, when I landed here at Waterloo Station. These men are too old for Military Service but they give so many nights a week to the Red Cross. They have to buy their own uniforms and they get no pay...’

It would take one year and a fortnight for Shortall to die. He was buried with full military
honours in Plot X, Row B, Grave 4 of Brookwood Military Cemetery (Surrey). On 13 August 1918 a bill in the amount of  £17 14s Op was sent to Mrs. Shortall for burial expenses. Somehow Thos Vigers (Funeral Furnisher, Valuer and Monumental Mason) was mislead into thinking that the parents of those who died for their country had to pay for their own funeral. This incident provoked a rapid exchange of  letters always written in a dignified and gentlemanly fashion by Shortall’s father and the situation was resolved by the Department of Militia in order to avoid establishing such a precedent in the future. But the damage had been done to the Shortalls.

 
























































SOURCE:   Novalis Prayers






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