First official visit for Area Bishop Jenny

 

Area Bishop Jenny Andison made her first official visit to SMM since her consecration a year ago. After preaching and celebrating at morning services she remarked:

"What a beautiful place to worship God. I enjoyed my morning at St.Mary Magdalene's. The music was as lovely as I had imagined and the congregation warm and welcoming. I was glad to be able to thank Fr. David and Mtr. Jennifer for their leadership and talk about future mission and ministry opportunities."

Music Bursary Announced

Family and friends have honoured the musical contributions of Douglas Cowling by establishing a bursary fund to be awarded to a part-time musician currently working in the Diocese of Toronto and encourage musical and liturgical experimentation. 

Douglas was a writer, teacher, musician, musicologist, and creative artist. Countless households across North America resound to his imaginative 'Classical Kids' series which introduced children to the music of Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky. A person of faith, Douglas for decades served as a parish-musician and influential teacher, particularly in the field of liturgics.

Doug loved the church's liturgy and invited all age-groups into the mystery of worship, skillfully designing all-age liturgical events, composing music for festivals and major gatherings, mainly for the parish-level. Doug liked nothing better than to opine and design, teach and tutor congregants and clergy alike. Doug's sense of humour, his kindness, as well as the breadth and depth of his scholarship, struck everyone who knew him. Always passionate in his perspective, we miss the jolly and inimitable Douglas. And we thank God for his rare gifts and faithful witness.  Donations can be made though the Diocese of Toronto's Foundation

Socks Delivered

Socks Delivered

Our kids have now completed their most successful sock drive in three years since its inception in 2014.  They had learned about the difficulties marginalized people experienced in their daily lives - homelessness, lack of good food and clothing and winter cold.  After hearing the stories, they came up with the idea of warm dry socks as something that would provide a small measure of help and enjoyed soliciting donations from the parish by making their own announcements. It worked.

One enterprising young member took more initiative this year and took the drive to her school classroom at Clinton School - just across the street from the parish church.  That added more than 40 extra contributions.  We wrapped them all and contributed them at a recent community dinner on January 4.  Some of the kids joined us to help with their distribution.

More socks and boots

Our Sunday School kids have embarked on their third annual sock and boot drive to provide warms socks and boots to needy persons in our community.  This year one of our Junior Sunday School girls took the initiative to introduce the project to her neighbourhood school and within a week had added 42 more pairs of socks to the expected 100 that arrive.  We wrap them all and distribute them during the holiday season.

Advent III - with a baptism

We welcomed a young man named Michael into our parish family - who  received a comforting rocking from Mother Jennifer before returning to his father.  He soon recovered and shared a wonderful cake to celebrate the event later.

A seasonal message

Watch this brief message for the people of Toronto Diocese from our Archbishop to tell us about the value of the Advent season.