The Pre-Authorized Giving Plan, authorized and supported by the Archdiocese of Toronto, is a direct debit program allowing you to support our Parish through an automatic monthly withdrawal from your bank account. Now you can lend us your support in the same manner that you currently pay many of your current financial obligations without writing cheques or searching your wallet for cash every Sunday. PAG brochures and sign-up forms are available online, at the back of the Church and in the parish office. During the pandemic, you are asked to please consider this manner of supporting our parish community.
To enroll in this convenient program, simply fill out the form, attach a void cheque and drop it into the weekly collection basket or mail it to the Parish Office. For additional information on PAG please contact the parish office. A tax receipt will be issued to you for the donations you contribute for that year.
This week, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation on February 2nd. This feast has traditionally been associated with the blessing of candles. This year, as a result of the pandemic, parishioners may bring their own candles to the Mass at 8:00 am on Wednesday, February 2 and the candles will be blessed at the beginning of Mass.
If you have been to a wedding lately, it is very likely that you heard the second reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians that we heard proclaimed this Sunday. In fact, I think this would be the second reading that has been used at about ninety percent of the weddings that I have ever celebrated. So often is this reading used at weddings, that I think for many people they may assume that it is the love between a couple that St. Paul is writing about. For that reason, I thought it would be good to speak this week about St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians and the place that this passage plays within it. 
It is time once again for the Friars’ Student Writing Award. Students aged 13-19 are invited to submit a 450-500-word essay for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated from January 18 to 25, 2022.
“We Have Seen His Star in the East.” This is the theme that was chosen for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this year. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity takes place each year in the week leading up to the Solemnity of the Conversion of St. Paul, which is celebrated on January 25th. Along with this theme, the organizing committee for this international week of prayer also wrote a meditation to accompany this week’s prayer intention. At the same time that we are celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, this Sunday in the Catholic Tradition is Word of God Sunday; a celebration introduced to the Church by Pope Francis in 2019. 