Celebrating "Pops" 1928-2018

I welcomed a minor into my home as a foster parent in the fall of 2016, a youth from Nigeria abandoned at the Dorval airport. He ended up in downtown Montreal, alone and vulnerable. Dans la Rue sheltered him in "The Bunker" where he was safe at night until social services could find a longer term solution.

I remember when Father Emmett "Pops" Johns borrowed money at age 60 to buy the van to become a missionnaire de la rue in 1988 . Thirty years later at his death (on January 13th) he is being remembered for his vision, determination and his large family of street kids in Montreal; his kids, our kids.
Generosity incarnates the best of faith, hope and love. It moves into action at a time when some think of retirement and "Pops" lived into a new career. St. Francis said: "Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words."
Thank you, Pops, for your feet, hands, heart and vision to love our street kids. You inspire me to practice a radical hospitality in the everyday.
You were for so many "Le bon Dieu dans la rue".

This African-American spiritual is my prayer as I am inspired by Father Emmett Johns' example:

I'm gonna live so God can use me, anywhere Lord, anytime.
I'm gonna live so God can use me, anywhere Lord, anytime.
(I’m gonna: work, pray, sing!)

Let’s get on with living it!
Rev. David

Breakfast Literacy

In honour of International Literacy Day (Jan. 27) we had a team of volunteers come in this morning from RECLAIM literacy. Alphabet pancakes were on the menu!

Our Breakfast Club team was delighted with the gift of a new grill from RECLAIM Literacy (Joy Fyckes, Executive Director) and Literacy Quebec (Marg Legault, Executive Director)

Our Co-manager Sheila reports, "We now have 53  children  signed up with the Breakfast Club. On average we have 40 children per day who either walk or come by bus. The kids enjoy coming very much and are well fed with most coming back for seconds. Every Wednesday we have 2 volunteers from the company VORTEX in Pointe Claire which alternate from week to week. George O’Reilly and Sue Mooney volunteer every Monday and Friday, Kathy O’Halloran generally Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Frank DeMontigny every day. "

Sheila, Sue (Co-Managers), Joy Fyckes (RECLAIM), Austen (volunteer) Frank (volunteer) and kneeling, Marg Legault (Literacy Quebec)

Frank is usually the first to arrive at the Mission in the morning and he is the one who clears the snow and/or ice making our entrance safe for kids and adults alike. Thank you Frank!

Sheila continues, "We always have fruit and yogurt for the kids and each day we serve something different such as grilled cheese, eggos, cereal, oatmeal, croissants, scrambled eggs and toast and pancakes and from time to time some surprises. The Breakfast Club gives the children a good start for a busy day."

At the end of Thursday's Literacy breakfast, each child received a loot bag from RECLAIM containing a box of alphabet Kraft Dinner, and a bag of Alpha-bits cereal, with the written message: "Breakfast time or dinner: when you practice reading you're a winner."

Please pray for students and young adults

The following comes to us from Jean-Daniel Williams, McGill chaplain.

Dear colleagues,

This weekend about 25 of our young adults are going on our annual retreat to spend time with one another, building community, worshipping, envisioning future social justice and religious projects, and generally frolicking in the snow.

The McGill Ecumenical Chaplaincy is centred at McGill but our ministries include young professionals and students at all of Montréal's universities. 

I simply ask in ways that are appropriate to you personally and in your church's Sunday worship to keep us in your prayers. These retreats have in the past been times of profound vocational discernment and developing personal relationships. These retreats have had an important role in some upcoming ordinations and weddings! 

We do in fact have many amazing, committed, and passionate young people in our church. I appreciate you keeping our ministry to them and them in your prayers particularly this weekend. Telling them that United and Anglican churches across the province are praying for them has been deeply meaningful to them in years past.

Sincerely,
Jean-Daniel

Le Révérend/The Rev'd
Jean-Daniel Williams
McGill University
Student Services, Christian Chaplain (Protestant)
Services aux Étudiants, Aumônier chrétien (protestant) 

L'Église en marche vers les autres: vidéo-conférence

Many of you mention that you would like occasions to use and practise your French and particularly church vocabulary. Here is a new version of the UTC online-series PARLONS DE LA VIE D’ÉGLISE. This time our topic will be: L’ÉGLISE EN MARCHE.

If you have taken some French courses and are looking to continue practising your church vocabulary while discussing a current church topic, this is an easy, accessible opportunity for you. The online course will be taught by Angelika Piché five Thursdays from 12:30 pm to 1:15 pm, from January to April.

Meet 'n' Mix/ Méli-Mélo

The next community celebration at the Mission is on Sunday, January 28th. Along with the usual lunch and activities for the whole family, there will be a baptism this month! Join Rev. David in welcoming Madison April Lapensée, daughter of Jean-Luc Lapensée and Karyn Labrecque into our community of faith. Doors open at 12:30. All are welcome.

Going Home by Another Way

January needs a better agent. As the months of the year go, January and February are invariably the least popular members of The Twelve. But February has the advantage of brevity…and Valentine’s Day. January? January’s when the Christmas ornaments start to look ragged and winter tightens its long grip. A better agent might call public attention to January’s several charms. It’s the chronological home of neglected holidays. January gives us New Year’s Day—the biggest day of the year in some cultures. But in America, it lives in the shadow of its bacchanalian December neighbor: New Year’s Eve. January also hosts the Eighth Day of Christmas, as well as the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth. The Eastern Orthodox celebrate Christmas on January 7; they can do their holiday shopping when stores are having post-holiday sales. (Wouldn’t it be a lot thriftier if we bought our gifts on December 26 and opened them on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, January 5?) The year’s first month also brings us Martin Luther King Day. And an obscure church holiday called Baptism of the Lord—which is known only to clergy who use the lectionary. What else? My birthday is in January. And Epiphany—which celebrates the arrival of the Magi to visit the infant Jesus.

Much has been made of the story of the Magi—those wise men (of indeterminate number) who came from the East to visit the baby Jesus with strangely inappropriate gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In his well-known poem, “The Journey of the Magi,” T.S. Eliot describes their harrowing travels to discover the infant. The poems speaks not a word about the wonder, or the revelation, or the joy of it all. In fact, it asks:

« Were we led that way for birth or death?
There was a birth, certainly…
This Birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death. »

Yikes. Not exactly the holiday cheer that I’d like to see. Does it not  suggest that the openhearted must make changes despite themselves. Some “progressive” preachers have pointed out that after discovering the Christ, the Magi “went home by another way.” They regained their old lives but with new insight, new light.

This is always the case when the living Christ calls us to himself, leading us with light we cannot help but follow. He’ll make us ill at ease with ourselves as we are, and the world as it is. The call of Christ is never to remain the same. It’s always to something better than we are—and yet somehow consistent with who we are. It’s something to think about as January fades into February. 

Darlene H.,
Chair of Church Council

Une Nouvelle Année 2018

Les mages: un massacre et des chemins pour une nouvelle année
Réflexion sur l’évangile de Matthieu 2, 1-18

Qu’est-ce que les rois Mages ont ressenti quand ils ont appris que leur visite chez l’enfant de Marie à Bethléem a eu comme conséquence le massacre d’innocents? Nous aimons la version aseptisée de l’histoire de Noël, empreinte d’innocence, de vulnérabilité, d’humilité. Une mère de famille m’a même demandé de ne pas lire ce récit violent d’enfants mâles tranchés par l’épée lors du culte de dimanche. Ce récit nous rappelle pourtant que la lumière n’existe qu’en relation avec les ténèbres et n’a de sens qu’à moins d’être près des dures réalités de notre existence humaine.

En ce début d’une nouvelle année, je regarde les chemins à parcourir et je cherche un sens dans ce récit de la fin du temps de Noël. L’Épiphanie : qui est cette ‘apparition’ appelée Emmanuel, Dieu avec nous? Comment cette lumière éclairera-t-elle ma route et mes choix?  Il y a beaucoup de chemins dans ce récit : celui qui suit une étoile et conduit non pas à un bébé mais à un enfant, celui qui se révèle en rêves venus de Dieu aux sages ou par un ange à Joseph, et celui d’un choix difficile que fait la Sainte Famille, de se résigner à une vie de réfugiés, nomades qui cherchent la sécurité en Égypte.

Quant aux chemins que j’ai à parcourir en 2018:

- je m’assure d’être entouré, comme les Mages, de co-explorateurs;

- j’ose lire des récits bibliques et me demander comment le voyage de ces personnages peut m’aider dans mes choix de vie;

- je m’ouvre à Dieu, en prière, en songes et par sa voix au milieu de ma vie;

- je voyage ‘léger’/prêt à partir le temps venu - à l ‘aventure ou en accompagnant des ‘SDF-Sans domicile fixe’;

- j’ai de l’empathie pour ceux et celles vivant des circonstances difficiles;

- je n’essaie pas de défendre Dieu dans les larmes et les cris face à l’injustice;

- j’agis contre la violence par l’hospitalité envers les étrangers, les réfugiés;

- je vois, au cœur de l’évangile un bébé, devenu enfant, bientôt porteur d’une croix et je demande le courage de suivre ses traces.

Bonne réflexion sur vos chemins de découvertes et d’aventure en 2018!

Pasteur David

Vous les peuples, suivez-moi !
Je suis la lumière du monde !
Si vous savez aimer, vous serez dans la joie,
vous saurez comment suivre mes voies… »

1.Quand le chant des anges s’est tu,
quand l’étoile au ciel a disparu,
quand les mages, les bergers, s’en sont retournés,
c’est là que Noël a commencé :

2.Pour trouver les pauvres et rejetés,
pour consoler l’âme brisée,
pour nourrir d’amour et de pain les enfants,
soigner notre environnement…

3.Pour briser les fers des prisonniers,
pour combler les inégalités,
pour entourer, aider, les peuples malheureux,
pour embrasser les enfants de Dieu…

4.Pour toujours l’espérance garder,
pour danser devant un nouveau-né,
mettre un peu de musique au fond des vieux cœurs,
et chanter à toutes les couleurs…

(traduit de l'anglais par David Fines, septembre 2006)

Between Jesus' Birth and Baptism

Parents sometimes look at babies with fondness as they remember their own children's early years. They may say: enjoy them while you have them for they grow up quickly. When I think of how the Sunday lectionary reading races towards Jesus' baptism following Epiphany it feels like the post-birth years are not important, that the only focus is on Jesus the adult. It seems disrespectful of the hard work of Mary and Joseph, the growing spiritual awareness that leads Jesus to affirm later in his life vocation and call, and the great numbers of people who cared for him in his formative years.

Simeon and Anna

The 28 years of care, love, protection, questioning, exposure to another culture, religion and language are foundation blocks on which Jesus' ministry will be built.
Read some of these post-manger and growing up stories. They are not chronological and are differing episodes of Jesus' early years that each gospel writer wanted their readers to hear. Hear the influence of so many on his life, the 'village' that raised him.

Joseph the Carpenter

The wise ones find Jesus on Mary's lap in their rented house, in his 'terrible two' phase. Joseph supports his family as a carpenter. (Mathew 2:1-12).

He is circumcised a week after his birth and given the name Jesus. (Luke 2:21).

Jesus is presented in a ceremony of purification in the Temple where an offering is made; two elderly people, Simeon the priest and Anna the prophetess speak incredible words about him in their prayers and blessings. Mary being told he will be a sign of God for others but bring her much sorrow. (Luke 2:22-38).

The holy family escapes the tyrant Herod and flees into Egypt for Jesus' formative years in a different culture, language and religion. (Matthew 2;13-14).

After God speaks in a dream Joseph brings his family to Nazareth. (Matthew 2:19-23)

When Mary and Joseph return to Nazareth Luke writes that : 'the child grew and became strong, was full of wisdom, and God's blessings were upon him.' (Luke 2:39-49).

Jesus went to Jerusalem at Passover where he had his Bar Mitzvah at 12 years, becoming a man and reading the Torah in public. He engaged the Jewish teachers with questions and listened to them. Mary and Joseph were astonished at this. When they returned home Mary treasured all these things in her heart. 'Jesus grew both in body and in wisdom, gaining favour with God and with men.' (Luke 241-52).

As I read these growing up stories,
I pray for all families, parents and children.
I pray that we can together be the village that raises them well.
I pray we listen to Jesus' early years and appreciate the many who influenced his life and later ministry.
I pray that we continue to follow this one we call Light of the World, Mary's Child, Saviour.

Rev. David

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home,
The work of Christmas is begun.
'I am the light of the world, you people come and follow me.'
If you follow and love you'll learn the mystery of what you were meant to do and be.
(Jim Strathdee, 1967)
 

Living Into Right Relations with St. Columba House

Right Relations REEL Discussions

Interested in deepening your understanding of indigenous peoples and their cultures, and the obstacles we all face in building right relationship?  Join us for a new monthly series of films that will help us learn and explore.

Sunday, January 21, 2 – 5:30pm

Screening of the NFB Film “Reel Indians”

St. Columba House, 2365 Grand Trunk (Charlevoix metro)

Freewill offering to support Montreal Urban Aboriginal Health Centre; more info or to RSVP: rightrelationsqcpres@gmail.com or 514-932-6202.

Mini-Market Jan. 17

Get your fresh produce at great prices at the Mission next Wednesday, 10:30AM to 3:30PM. Join us for lunch at 12:30 if you can. If you want to be sure to get the things you want, pre-order by calling or e-mailing Sheila.