Holy Eucharist Parish

His name is Oscar. He’s not the friendliest cat. But he has an uncanny knack for predicting within hours when nursing home patients with whom he lives are about to die. Oscar lives at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, and is the subject of a fascinating essay in the prestigious medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine. Click here.

One of the things that attracted me and many, many others to the Eastern Christian Churches is the beauty found in worship. All of our senses are taken up and used in worship - sight (icons and candles), hearing (chanted music, bells), smell (incense, candles), sound (chants, bells, Holy Scripture, hymnography) and touch (making the sign of the Cross, prostrations, embracing one another). As a musician, I was and am first moved by sound. Below is a beautiful hymn in honour of the Mother of God entitled, “We Magnify You.” I hope to have other selections posted here for you all over the next few months.

There will a very special Married Life Workshop and Retreat - a Couple’s Day Out to  enrich their lives as a couple. All couples, married or engaged, as well as single people are welcome to participate.  This event will take place on Saturday, 29 September, 9:00 am - 3:30 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Church, 160 Euclid Street, Winnipeg. Facilitator: Fr. Charles Joanides - Fr. Joanides was a Presenter at the Eastern Catholic Bishop’s Assembly of Canada and the U.S. in Chicago. Cost: $20.00 per person or $35.00 per couple. Beverages will be provided, please bring Bag Lunch. Topics: Why marriages succeed and fail: an overview; Myths in society re divorce; Value of communication/problem solving & conflict resolution; Faith as positive impact on marriage; Christ centred existence. For further information: please contact the Chancellor, Fr. Richard Soo, SJ at 338-7801.

In 1992, I had the opportunity to study and live partially the monastic life for two and a bit months at Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Redwood Valley, California. The first month was with the summer intensive program of the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at Saint Paul University, Ottawa. The rest of the time was spent living as best as I could as a monastic. The life of prayer (liturgical and personal - which are almost identical) was rich and deep and has had a lasting impression on me. The abbot, Fr. Boniface, a great spiritual man himself, often taught during those months (and the years following in the monastery’s newsletters) that a monastery was a spiritual power house for the church. Monastic life, he said, was not a luxury to the life of the church; rather, it was a necessity that, if absent, would have consequences for the life of the Church in the world. He spoke this conviction out of his own learning of the Church’s teachings, and out of his own deep personal experience.

Yesterday, September 9, Pope Benedict spoke very much the same while he was in Vienna. Here’s part o fthe report from the Vatican Information Servcie:

MONASTERIES: PLACES OF SPIRITUAL POWER

VATICAN CITY, SEP 9, 2007 (VIS) - Shortly after 4.30 p.m. today, the Holy Father arrived by car at the abbey of Heiligenkreuz, 30 kilometers from Vienna. It is the largest Cistercian monastery in Europe and the oldest in the world to have remained open uninterruptedly since its foundation, in 1135.

The name Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross) is due to a relic of the True Cross which was donated to the monastery in 1188 by duke Leopold V and which is still venerated there. Under the Nazis, the monastery was almost completely expropriated and many of the monks were imprisoned, Following World War Two, the abbot Karl Braunstofer reformed the liturgy in accordance with Vatican Council II and created a Latin breviary in which particular importance was given to the Gregorian Chant.

In the abbey is the Pontifical Theological Faculty, founded in 1802 as a teaching center for philosophy and theology. It currently has more than 100 students.

On his arrival, Benedict XVI paused in prayer before the relic of the True Cross in the abbey church together with the monks, teachers and students. Then, after a greeting from the abbot Fr. Gregor Henckel Donnersmack, he delivered a talk to those present.

“The core of monasticism is worship,” said the Pope. “But since monks are people of flesh and blood on this earth, St. Benedict added to the central command: ‘pray,’ a second command: ‘work.’ … Thus in every age monks, setting out with their gaze upon God, have made the earth life-giving and lovely. Their protection and renewal of creation derived precisely from their looking to God.”

“Your primary service to this world must therefore be your prayer and the celebration of the Divine Office. The interior disposition of each priest, and of each consecrated person, must be that of ‘putting nothing before the Divine Office.’ The beauty of this inner attitude will find expression in the beauty of the liturgy,” of which “the determining factor must always be our looking to God.”

“Whenever in our thinking we are only concerned about making the liturgy attractive, interesting and beautiful, the battle is already lost,” said the Pope. “In the light of this, I ask you to celebrate the sacred liturgy with your gaze fixed on God within the communion of saints, the living Church of every time and place, so that it will truly be an expression of the sublime beauty of the God Who has called men and women to be His friends.”

And so I commend to you all to pray for the establishment of a Ukrainian Catholic monastery living an authentic monastic life within Canada.

I commend to you all the soul of the servant of God, the priest Pavlo Hayda, who was tragically killed in Chicago yesterday morning. He leaves behind his wife, Christine, and four young sons, Julian, Zachary, Elias and Dymytrij. Fr. Pavlo was the pastor of St. Joseph Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago. I met him in there last October-November for the Encounter of the Eastern Catholic Churches of North America. He and Christine were the coordinators of this international gathering of Eastern Catholics bishops and clergy. Fr. Pavlo and his mother, Roman Hayda, were also significant contributors to the Kyivan Church Study Group that seeks ways for unity among the Eastern Churches - Catholic and Orthodox.

Christ our eternal King and God, You have destroyed death and the devil by Your Cross and have restored man to life by Your Resurrection; give rest, Lord, to the soul of Your servant Father Pavlo who has fallen asleep, in Your Kingdom, where there is no pain, sorrow or suffering. In Your goodness and love for all men, pardon all the sins he has committed in thought word or deed, for there is no man or woman who lives and sins not, You only are without sin.

Eternal Memory! Вічная пам’ять!