The human hand is an amazing thing. It is made up of 27 bones and can perform incredible tasks. It is a marvel that human engineering can barely imitate. The same can be said for the foot, a similarly complex organism. If we turn our attention to some of the more complex organs in the body, like the brain or the eye, their awesome capabilities become even more profound. And yet, as amazing as these parts are, there remains one fact that is indisputable— separated from the body they become useless and loose their ability to function. Even when attached to the body, if they do not work in harmony with it, they can actually become a liability to the well-being of the body. If a part of the body becomes infected or no longer works in harmony with the whole, it can weigh the body down or actually turn against the body. This is the reason that often the best way to deal with an infected or cancerous organ is to amputate or remove it before it does harm to the whole.

In his First letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes beautifully about this phenomenon of the different parts of the body and the importance of their functioning together in order for any of them to have value. He does so in order to speak of the Church and the importance of the different members of the Church working together to build up the one Body of Christ. In chapter 12, verse 12 to 27, Paul writes: Continue reading →

As I am sure many of you know better than I do, the Paulist Fathers ,who served this parish for more than one hundred years, were founded in 1858 by Father Isaac Hecker. Father Hecker was a convert to the Catholic Faith and was not baptized until he was 25 years old. He was first ordained a priest as a member of the Redemptorist Missionary Priests, but later founded the Paulist Fathers with the particular mission of bringing the Good News to those who had not yet heard it. Most of the priests who joined this new community were men who had converted from other Protestant denominations. The Paulist Fathers were the first religious order that was founded in the United States and one of their community’s main charisms was to attempt to bring the Catholic Faith to the mainly Protestant population of the United States of America in a way that was both exciting and new by using new methods of communication and focusing their preaching on the Bible. After the Second Vatican Council, which took place in the early 1960’s, the mission of the Paulist Fathers centred more specifically on evangelizing all people and using the modern methods of communication to do so. The Paulist Fathers came to Toronto in 1914 at the invitation of Archbishop Neil MacNeil and began their work here at St. Peter’s Parish and at the Paulist Centre. Other then their parish in Rome, this parish was their only house outside of the United States. Continue reading →