Before I get into my message about parish life news for the month of January with some things to look forward to, here are the final two Eucharistic Prayer Companions for the Feast of Epiphany, this Sunday, as well as the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the following day. I hope they were a helpful resource for prayer since the beginning of Advent.
The whole collection of the Eucharistic Prayer Companions and other great resources and articles came from the National Eucharistic Revival's website blog: https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/blog.
Now for more specific parish things. First of all, I wanted to thank all the ministers and volunteers who helped out at all of our liturgies these past couple of weeks– all of which went very well. And thank you to everyone for their kind personal Christmas cards, gifts, and words. I am always humbled by the support and care of our parish family.
Now that the great time of Christmas and New Year has passed, we shall soon be settling back into a more ordinary rhythm. Easter will be early this year though, so Ash Wednesday will be here in no time. While the good craziness of Christmas has come to an end, January is quite a busy month and I wanted to share about some of the things happening.
January 26th marks the Memorial of St. Timothy and St. Titus, and it is this Timothy that is the patron saint of our parish. The two saints and their date is a memorial of universal significance in the Church, so it is to be observed as an obligatory memorial in the liturgical calendar. This year, January 26th falls on a Friday, which does make it more difficult for many to attend whatever celebration we would have. This is why we shall celebrate the Mass of Sts. Timothy and Titus on the following Sunday for our weekend Masses, which will replace the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. We did this last year for the pastoral advantage and devotion of the faithful.
We shall do something a bit special though on the 26th in the evening for the occasion, however. We will be having a time of evening prayer in the church and then after that we shall be having our annual Celebration of Gifts and Talents (CGT) in the parish hall. The CGT is our regular opportunity to share some food and fellowship together and the chance to look at and discuss the many aspects of the life of our parish of St. Timothy. We put out a “save the date” notice in our bulletin before Christmas, and will have a bit more news and updates for this event on the 26th. You can read about last year's event from a previous blog post about it: https://www.st-timothy.ca/post/celebration-of-gifts-and-talents-recap.
Our parish will also be celebrating the Rite of Acceptance. At a Sunday Mass in January, our parish family will be officially recognising and celebrating those in our Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults who are coming to the end of their period of Inquiry and would now wish to take the next intentional step toward Baptism, and therefore all of the rest of Christian initiation with Eucharist and Confirmation. We have two men this year who have been journeying with us for quite some time and feel called to take the next step. The candidates will declare their intention to the Church and the Church in turn accepts them as persons who intend to become its members. Then, accepted into the order of catechumens, the Church embraces the catechumens as its own with a mother’s love and concern, nourished with the word of God and sustained by prayers, blessings, and formation in the Christian life as their journey unfolds through Lent toward Easter.
And speaking of Baptism, we also have four families who will be attending our baptism prep class soon and so you can expect some infant baptisms at some of our weekend Masses in January or February.
All these things are truly good for our parish life and are a great way to begin our new year of 2024. May the intercession of St. Timothy abundantly bless our parish family under his patronage.
Fr. Brian Trueman