The celebration began with Evensong in the cathedral, where the Rev. Canon Dr. Alison Falby was the preacher. As the former incumbent of All Saints Church-Community Centre, a FaithWorks ministry partner, she has seen first-hand the impact of FaithWorks on the lives of people in need.

At All Saints, she witnessed the effects of systemic poverty and injustice every day. “Giving a meal to someone who really needed a safe place to live sometimes felt like using a tiny Band-Aid to cover a gaping wound,” she said.

“While individual partners may specialize in different services, all welcome strangers. All offer belonging and friendship,” she continued. “When we care for the so-called least among us, the hungry, thirsty, lonely, naked, sick and imprisoned, we care for Christ’s own body, and the reign of God comes closer.”

FaithWorks, she said, makes it possible for Anglicans across the Diocese of Toronto to pool their resources and meet many more needs of many more people than they could as individual people or individual parishes.

“FaithWorks helps us as a flock, the Church, care for those among us who need an extra hand. Every time we care for someone in need, we both meet Christ and help build up the Body of Christ, whether we realize it or not.”

After Evensong, guests were invited to a reception in Snell Hall.

“For 30 years, FaithWorks has been a tangible expression of our commitment to put our faith into action. Today, we celebrate that remarkable history and, more importantly, the people whose lives have been changed because Anglicans chose to give,” said Peter Misiaszek, the diocese’s director of Stewardship Development.

FaithWorks was created at a time when the Ontario government had eliminated funding for key social services, leaving faith communities struggling to fill the gaps. The Diocese of Toronto responded by creating an annual parish appeal, with proceeds going to support outreach ministries. The name “FaithWorks” was suggested by Ward McCance, ODT, a parishioner of St. Peter, Cobourg and a long-time supporter of diocesan outreach.

Over its first 29 years, FaithWorks raised more than $42 million, with nearly $25 million coming directly from parishes. The remainder were gifts from individuals, corporations, foundations and community groups.

Misiaszek noted that its ministry partners are especially grateful, because FaithWorks is one of the relatively few sources of funding in the faith sector that provides reliable, ongoing support for annual operations.

The evening also included recognition of parishes who have raised the most funds in their archdeaconries, and those who have consistently achieved an annual contribution equal to at least 5 per cent of their offertory.

“Whether they make it a line item in their budget or aggressively promote the needs of our ministry partners, these parishes are the bedrock of our appeal,” said Misiaszek.

Bishop Andrew Asbil and Janice Hodgson, ODT, chair of the FaithWorks allocations committee, presented a mounted plaque of appreciation to each parish. The plaques included the biblical quote that supports the 30^th FaithWorks campaign: “Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’” (Matthew 14:16).

Two parishes were lauded for their extraordinary commitment to FaithWorks over the years. Redeemer, Bloor St. leads the diocese in consistent annual giving to FaithWorks, with total funds approaching $900,000. The parish endeavours to contribute at least 5 per cent of its annual operating budget each year.

St. Martin, Bay Ridges leads the diocese in consistent proportionate giving to FaithWorks, giving the equivalent of about 14 per cent of its operating budget to the annual campaign.

But, Misiaszek clarified, the funds St. Martin’s raises don’t come from the parish’s operating budget. “It is the result of the generosity of many individuals within the congregation who have made FaithWorks their personal commitment,” he said.

The gathering also acknowledged the leadership of Peter Davidson, ODT, who has organized St. Martin’s FaithWorks appeal from the very beginning. He also serves on the FaithWorks allocation committee.

As the 30^th anniversary year wraps up, parishes are being encouraged to join the anniversary challenge: 100 per cent participation and a 1 per cent increase in giving from every parish.

Given the growing need for food security, the allocations committee is also encouraging every Anglican to give a little extra for food. Every dollar raised above the $1.5 million campaign goal for 2026 will be directed toward initiatives addressing food insecurity across the Diocese of Toronto.

To learn more or donate, visit www.faithworks.ca

Read more: FaithWorks: How it all began by Ward McCance, ODT

The post FaithWorks celebrates 30 years appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

Now, more than 50 years later, she’s gratified to see how many women are leading parishes, dioceses and provinces—and the Anglican Communion itself.

“It all happened a lot faster than I think we would have realized 50 years ago. I remember there were jokes going around at the time—at the next Lambeth Conference there’ll be women bishops, and the one after that they’ll bring their husbands, and the one after that there’ll be an Archbishop of Canterbury. That was a joke, but it’s true,” she says.

The Anglican Church of Canada celebrates a major milestone in November: the 50^th anniversary of the ordination of women as priests. The first women priests were ordained in 1976, following the approval by General Synod of a resolution authorizing the ordination of women in 1975.

The women who entered ordained ministry over the next five decades experienced that change in very different ways, both personal and profound.

Being called

In the early 1970s, ordination to the priesthood wasn’t yet something women could seriously contemplate.

Canon Barnett-Cowan’s path to the priesthood wasn’t straightforward. She had attended Trinity College as an undergraduate and felt called to study theology, even if priestly ministry wasn’t available to her.

It was the Rev. Canon Howard Buchner, Dean of Divinity at the time, who insisted she pursue a Master of Divinity, a degree focused on practical ministry, rather than an academic Master of Theology.

“It really blew me away that he would suggest that at that point,” she says.

She faced a lot of misogyny from her male classmates. “They said, ‘What are you doing here? You should be a nun. You should marry a priest.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to marry you.’ And it was kind of a negative rebellion in me that said, ‘Wait a minute, why not? Why not offer myself as a deacon?”

The question of her right to be ordained was a frequent subject of discussion and debate even as she continued to study and discern her vocation.

“About 700 people, many of whom I knew, had signed a petition against the ordination of women. So that hurt. I looked at the names on the list and thought, these are my friends. These are the people I studied with,” she says.

She was ordained a deacon for the Diocese of Nova Scotia in 1975, just before General Synod voted to allow the ordination of women to the priesthood. She met and married her husband, the Rev. Bruce Barnett-Cowan, who was also ordained a deacon while at Trinity, and they moved to northern Quebec to serve in a parish together.

When the Bishop of Quebec told Bruce that he would soon be ordaining him as a priest, Bruce insisted that he wouldn’t be ordained without Alyson. They were ordained together at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Quebec City in 1978.

“It was clear by that point that the work I was doing in the congregation was priestly ministry,” says Canon Barnett-Cowan. “I was grateful that there was already a woman ordained in the Diocese of Quebec. Mercifully, there were no objections at my ordination.”

Growing up in Jamaica, the Ven. Cheryl Palmer loved the church, which was the centre of community life. By age 14 she knew she wanted to work in the Church, but she didn’t know what that might look like.

“I never knew that I could be a part of this until both a deaconess and a nun came to our church, and I thought, wow, there are places for women in the Church,” she says. “I was always interested, but it really sparked the possibility of being involved in the life of the Church.”

When her family moved to Hamilton in the mid-1970s, she immediately found an Anglican church, hoping to discover the same kind of joyful community she had known in Jamaica.

“It was extremely disappointing,” she says. “I remember just weeping my first Good Friday there, and it wasn’t because of the crucifixion at all. It was because there was hardly anybody there.”

When she went to Queen’s University, she found a church that more closely resembled the vibrant community she missed, and when she returned to Hamilton, she decided to try Christ’s Church Cathedral.

“I took three buses every Sunday morning to get to the cathedral. Joe Fricker was the dean, and Peter Elliot was there as the curate. And I found the church that I had left in Jamaica,” she says.

It was at the cathedral that her call to the priesthood began to take shape and be affirmed.

“There was no lightning strike for me. This was just always a part of my life—I cannot think of a time when the Church wasn’t critical in my life,” she says. “But I definitely knew that that was my call, and it was affirmed at the cathedral.”

She studied divinity at Trinity College and was ordained deacon in 1985 and priest in 1986 in the Diocese of Niagara. She celebrated her first Eucharist the next day at St. John, Ancaster, surrounded by members of her parish community.

“Presiding over the Eucharist was this huge honor for me, to know that this crowd out there will feel watered and fed by this act that I am doing,” she says. “That had the weight of responsibility, but also, and to me more importantly, the joy of communion, in the biggest sense of that word.”

While women’s ordination was becoming more commonplace in the Anglican Church of Canada, ordained ministry wasn’t something that women who grew up in other denominations could consider seriously.

In her early 20s, the Rev. Canon Stephanie Douglas was studying biblical translation and searching for a way to live out the call she felt to serve God full-time. When she joined the Anglican Church and decided to pursue graduate studies at Wycliffe College, that call started to take shape as a priestly vocation.

“My sense of vocation really came from other people seeing a vocation in me,” she says.

Dr. Alan Hayes, her thesis advisor, suggested that she speak to Bishop Victoria Matthews, a suffragan bishop of Toronto and the first woman elected bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada.

“We talked about vocation and calling and women in ministry specifically, and with her encouragement, I began the conversation with the diocese,” says Canon Douglas. “It was through listening to those voices, and my own longing to do the work of a priest, that I discovered a willingness to take on the actual mantle of priesthood, despite some of my questions from my childhood.”

She was ordained a deacon in 1998 and a priest in 1999, serving as an assistant curate at St. Paul, Bloor Street. When she remembers her first experiences behind the altar as a priest, she recalls feeling “gratitude with some trepidation.”

“What I remember is, first of all, being overwhelmed by all the hardware,” she says. “And a sense of my smallness. Not just because of the physical space and because of the size of everything spread out in front of me, but metaphorically speaking. And of gratitude to be called and set apart for the Church for this ministry.”

Years later, the Rev. Shelly Pollard had a similar experience. She first felt a call to ministry during high school, but she, too, grew up in a church that didn’t allow for ordained ministry by women.

“I just kind of pushed that away and thought, I’ll go to seminary and learn about that stuff when I’m older,” she says.

As her faith journey brought her to the Anglican Church, a few different clergy told her she should think about ordained ministry. At first, she rebuffed them.

“I thought, no, I’m focusing on my career,” she says. “It was hearing that call affirmed in other people, both male and female priests, once I found my way into the Anglican Church that made me think, OK, maybe I should actually think about this.”

Pollard was ordained a deacon in 2018 and a priest in 2019, and she remembers her first time standing behind the altar as a priest very clearly.

“I couldn’t stop smiling,” she says. “I remember putting on the chasuble and just being thrilled. I’m sure I probably made a couple of mistakes here and there because it’s your first time celebrating. But the whole entire time, I had the biggest smile on my face. It was just wonderful.”

Serving as priest

After ordination, beginning ministry as a female priest wasn’t without its challenges, especially in the early years. Beyond outright hostility, there were practical considerations.

“I remember on the fifth anniversary of the ordination of women, we had a gathering in Winnipeg, and one of the sessions was Dress and Address,” recalls Canon Barnett-Cowan. “People tried to share with each other how they named themselves, what they wore. Do you wear a collar like a man? How do you get a shirt that fits? All that kind of stuff.”

In the early 2000s, Canon Douglas still faced opposition to her vocation. She served in several parishes as an associate priest during the first years of her ministry.

“There were always people who left the church because I was coming. There were people who wouldn’t receive communion from me, who would come and talk to me about why they disagreed with the ordination of women,” she says.

She also faced more subtle resistance and even confusion. “There were some people who had a hard time calling me ‘Reverend.’ My male colleagues were talking about the authority and deference they were given. They were called ‘Father This’ and ‘Father That,’ and I was just Stephanie.”

She soon realized that she would have to earn her congregations’ trust in a way that wasn’t required of her male colleagues.

“I wasn’t given the same trust by virtue of the collar that my male colleagues were, or that I think I am now. But I decided that that wasn’t such a bad thing, because once you’ve done the work of earning people’s trust, it’s harder to lose it,” she says.

Across the years, the four agree that being a woman has shaped their ministry in particular ways.

Canon Barnett-Cowan says her role as a mother helped form her ministry as a priest. “Being a mother to people, I think, teaches empathy, teaches driving you crazy in situations, being adaptable to different people,” she says.

Archdeacon Palmer says that being a woman has shaped her ministry entirely. “I’m responding to people as a woman. And whether I recognize it or not, whoever I’m ministering to and with experience me as a woman, and specifically as a Black woman,” she says.

Canon Douglas has noticed that she’s been able to offer pastoral care to people who may find her less threatening because she’s a woman. “With women suffering from domestic violence, I get a lot of calls, and I’ve had people walk up off the street, coming to our church for prayer,” she says.

For her part, Pollard says her experience as a racialized woman has given her a perspective on the lives of some of her parishioners.

“I can speak to that in a way that maybe not everyone can, just recognizing what that lived experience of being a racialized woman is. It has helped me to give language to what some of our parishioners might face,” she says.

Archdeacon Palmer also identifies that her presence as a leader in the Church lets other women consider opportunities they otherwise might never have dreamed of.

“Our churches have always been packed with women, but they never saw themselves in the leadership,” she says. “I think that one of the things that women did was allow other women to see themselves in the leadership—and as a Black woman, even more so that other young Black women could see themselves in the leadership.”

Looking ahead

Archdeacon Palmer doesn’t look back at her own ministry for wisdom, instead focusing on what’s happening in the Church now.

“In my 40 years as a priest, it’s been so different from the start to now that anything I would have to tell some young person coming in would only be about the now. The rest is nostalgia,” she says. “The Anglican tendency to appeal to a time long past may not be what will keep us going. Think long and hard about being conventional.”

Canon Douglas recalls the advice from a postulancy supervisor not to sacrifice her family and relationships for the sake of the Church.

“It reminded me of the importance of all the vocations that are ours,” she says. “The ministry of priest is important, but God cares about all the roles that we form, as wives, husbands, daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, mothers and fathers.”

She would also remind her younger self that there is more generosity from people in the pews than she might expect.

“Despite a few experiences in parishes where my being a woman was an obvious obstacle to some people, I have found colleagues and parishioners to be very generous in allowing me to be a priest named Stephanie,” she says.

As a more recently ordained priest, Pollard says she’s grateful for the women who came before her.

“I know that I came into ordination after a lot of work has been done, in terms of both gender and race. It’s not something that I take for granted,” she says. “It’d be wrong of me to say that there is equality when there isn’t. But I recognize that I stand on the shoulders of those who’ve come before me, and that is something that I try to honour.”

Canon Barnett-Cowan is grateful that women being ordained priests in Canada today are much less likely to experience overt misogyny.

“Just be yourself, don’t try to fit a mold. That, of course, is a great freeing thing, because women coming into training now have a vast array of role models that they can follow. They don’t have to make it up at the beginning,” she says. “The doors are wide open for women in ministry now to do whatever they feel called to do. Just be brave.”

The diocese will mark the anniversary with a Eucharist on Oct. 15 and a service of Choral Evensong on Oct. 18 at St. James Cathedral. Bishop Riscylla Shaw will preach, and women priests are invited to vest (choir dress: cassock, surplice, tippet and hood). After the service, everyone is invited to a wine and cheese reception.

The post Women answering the call appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

While I’m looking forward to the next phase of life when I’m rooted once again in a particular community, this season hasn’t been without its charms. And of course, as with all things, I’ve gained a few insights along the way.

1. Visiting new churches is life-giving. This has been the biggest blessing of the past many months. It didn’t surprise me, but it was nice to be reminded again of the many gifts congregations can offer – and we barely scratched the surface!

It’s a joy to belong to a community, and it’s a joy to see how other Anglicans worship. During this churchless year, my family has returned to congregations familiar to us where we were sure of a warm welcome, but we’ve also stepped through new doors, not always knowing what to expect. Rooted in a familiar liturgy, we’ve observed the different ways communities live out their call to worship God and serve the world.

Not everything was to our personal tastes; nor should it be. The congregation with unfamiliar music had the warmest welcome. The one with very few kids had the best activity bag. No congregation was perfect, no congregation was the same, and yet in every one we found a community of faithful people praising God.

Familiarity is good. It’s comfortable and comforting. It provides a safe space to ask questions, and companions with whom to learn to follow Jesus. But it’s also valuable beyond measure to get out of that bubble every now and then, to remind ourselves that our way is not the only way, and that we are part of something much more vast than our little corner of God’s kingdom.

2. It can be a gift to stay home. There are weeks in all our lives that are packed with activity, when we arrive at the weekend breathless and exhausted. And for families with kids, weekends can be just as busy, with swimming lessons, birthday parties, dance recitals and family gatherings. And then there’s a subway shutdown.

For several years, my daughter and I would walk down the street to church in-person every Sunday, come rain or shine or snowpocalypse, my husband having left home hours before to lead the early service. Interruptions to the pattern, usually caused by illness, were less breaks than long hours of pure survival mode.

So this past year we decided, on occasion, to give ourselves a real break. Often we tuned into livestreamed worship, a wonderful outcome of the pandemic that many congregations have continued to invest in. And sometimes we didn’t. Some weeks, we gave ourselves a slow morning to simply enjoy time at home with each other. We knew church would be there next Sunday.

The weekly rhythm of worship is important, and faith grows stronger in the context of a community. But the freedom to choose not to go to church, when exercised judiciously, is no bad thing.

3. Giving doesn’t have to stop. Despite not attending the same church every week, we’ve still been able to give to ministry we feel called to support. Tools like pre-authorized remittance and CanadaHelps make it easy to give even when we’re not physically in church, and to give to more than one congregation. Electronic giving also lets us support the communities we’re visiting when we don’t think to bring cash, which is almost always.

No doubt the amount and direction of our gifts will shift with the changes in our lives, but it’s a comfort to know that we can find easy and predictable ways to give no matter where we are.

4. Faith formation needs to happen at home. This also wasn’t a new thought, but it did become more real. During our churchless year, my daughter morphed from a kindergartener with rounded edges to a gangly first-grader, all sharp knees and elbows. Her curiosity and critical thinking have taken off, and she has started to appreciate that her Christian faith is something that most of her friends don’t share.

Relying solely on Sunday School to teach my daughter about God and Jesus was never the plan, still less so when we’re not visiting the same place every week. She’s at an age when she wants to learn from her parents and share her thoughts. For now, at least, we are the most important people in her life. And her faith won’t deepen if we don’t take the trouble to help deepen it. Just as we need to help her practice reading and writing, math and problem-solving, we need to help her practice her faith.

It’s not always comfortable, and there’s still part of me that feels unqualified to disciple anybody, but it’s much too important to neglect. We shouldn’t leave our faith behind at the church door on Sunday. It should follow us home, shape how we grow, the choices we make, the ways we live our lives. There’s no way to predict what decisions my daughter will make about faith as she grows up, but I can hope that providing a space where we ask questions, have tricky conversations and grow together will help nurture in her a faith that is curious and active.

This nomadic year wasn’t something I had planned, and I didn’t necessarily welcome it. And yet, there have been valuable experiences that I can’t regret having, and valuable insights that I can’t regret knowing. I may not have another year like this again in my life, but I hope to remember that faith is formed not only where we put down roots, but also whenever God invites us to look beyond them.

The post Lessons from a “churchless” season appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

“It wasn’t something that I had given any thought at all to,” she says.

But when she discovered she’d been nominated for one of five open spots on the committee, which meets between sessions of the full council to continue its work, a seed of excitement was planted.

“I thought it would be quite an opportunity. There are many things that I felt I could take to the table, and some ways that I thought I could be of help,” she says. “I had no attachment to the outcome. If it didn’t happen, it was absolutely okay.”

Later that week, when her name was the first read out, it took her a moment to realize she’d really been elected.

“It’s absolutely an honour and a privilege, because when you see the folks in the room and know that they’re representatives from 165 countries across the world, it’s quite the feeling,” she says.

Canon Gittens is one of the Anglican Church of Canada’s three delegates to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), along with Bishop Riscylla Shaw and the Rev. Marnie Peterson, a priest in the Diocese of New Westminster. The ACC, which meets every three years, is one of the Anglican Communion’s four “instruments of Communion.” It includes clergy, bishops and laity from across the Communion who consult on matters related to mission, advocacy and Christian unity.

It’s also the only instrument of Communion that includes lay people. The other three instruments are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference (a once-a-decade gathering of all Anglican bishops) and the Primates’ Meeting (a regular gathering of presiding bishops from each national or regional church).

Canon Gittens’ qualifications to serve on the standing committee are too many to name. Her involvement in parish, diocesan, national and international church ministry spans decades, alongside her work in healthcare administration. A member of St. Paul the Apostle, Rexdale, she has served with the diocesan Anglican Church Women, the Postulancy Committee, the Cast the Net steering committee, Diocesan Council and as a clergy coach. She is a founding member of Black Anglicans of Canada, chair of the national church’s Partners in Mission Coordinating Committee and a member of the Communion-wide advisory group for the United Society Partners in the Gospel.

“There’s a whole lot that I can pull from the skill sets, things that I have learned, things that I have lived,” she says. “I’m happy to use whatever skills, whatever tools I can use to help in the discussions.”

The ACC met this year from June 27 to July 5, dubbed ACC-19 – the 19^th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Much of the conversation was focused on the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, a theological document that considers what it means to be the Anglican Communion today. The proposals lay out a framework for how Anglican churches can deepen their unity, with some specific suggestions for changes to the definition of the Communion and its structures.

After considerable discussion, ACC-19’s members affirmed the need for “relationships and trust to grow” amid these conversations and called for further dialogue across the Communion over the next three years.

“The overwhelming thought was that it needed more time for reflection and discussion. We will continue the discussion and the dialogue and report back to ACC-20,” says Canon Gittens.

She says that while divisions within the Anglican Communion were top of mind, delegates expressed their desire and hope that unity would continue despite different views on doctrine.

“People were truly listening and trying to understand where the differences of opinion came from. They listened and they responded very respectfully,” she says.

The analogy of family arose often around the table, she continued. “There are many different family members. There’s some that we disagree with and there’s some that do not attend family gatherings, but at the end of the day, we’re still part of the family.”

As her work on the ACC’s standing committee begins, Canon Gittens says she would like to be able to raise the profile of the work of the Anglican Communion and its commissions within the Diocese of Toronto.

“As much as we can share a lot, we can also learn from the others,” she says. “There is unbelievable work being done by the networks and commissions that many folks are not aware of. Those are ways for parishes and groups in our diocese to reach out, to connect and work together, because so much work is already happening.”

As Anglicans around the world continue to consider what it means to be bound together in a global communion amid division, Canon Gittens says she hopes those conversations continue closer to home, as well.

“The Communion might never be the unified group that it may have been at some time. But acknowledging that and working together, learning from each other, listening to each other, respecting each other, moving forward together – this is a time like no other time.”

The post A seat at the Communion table appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

Instructions for the End of the World collects sermons preached by the Rev. Canon Maggie Helwig to the community of St. Stephen in-the-Fields, Toronto, over the course of five years, from March 2020 to November 2025. The events of the pandemic and the years that followed – the churchyard encampment and the repeated attempts to remove it, worsening income inequality, the rise of nationalism and a turn to fascism – are the backdrop for these texts, but the focus is the gospel.

What I found were sermons fresh and ancient, new and deeply timeless. Canon Helwig’s exegetical style is at once intellectual and deeply poetic, considering the nuances of New Testament Greek, the possibilities of literary imagery, and the realities of particular historical contexts. She hints at the personalities of the gospel writers, considers the specific ways parables are introduced, and challenges simplistic interpretations. Her sermons bring a fresh perspective to familiar stories, often offering nuance I hadn’t considered before.

Canon Helwig’s literary prowess is evident, but her sermons are not literary exercises. She speaks to her congregation in moments of real calamity and uncertainty, both on its doorstep and in the broader world. As I read, I heard most clearly a priest faithfully caring for her flock, speaking words of comfort, providing consolation and encouragement. And now she writes these words to all of us, finding our footing in a world that seems more chaotic every day.

Rooted in the Revised Common Lectionary, the three-year cycle of scriptural readings used in many Christian churches, this collection positions us alongside biblical figures grappling with their own turbulent times. Like us, these people exist in a messy, complicated world full of messy, complicated humans whom we are called to love, just as God loves us and we must love ourselves. We see here the theology from which Encampment, Canon Helwig’s award-winning book, grew – a theology that compels love of neighbour and action in the face of injustice. Canon Helwig calls us to consider the ways we can love and serve our neighbours in any context. (And there is no one who is not included among our neighbours.) She exhorts us to do whatever we can, however we can, even if it doesn’t feel like enough. “We can heal, now and then, small moments of our times. We can make things better, not forever, but for a day, an hour, ten minutes – and those minutes matter eternally,” she writes.

The hope Canon Helwig provides is complex and nuanced. There are no empty platitudes to be found in these pages. She acknowledges the pain and suffering in the world, the ways in which our society is deeply wrong and deeply flawed, and she doesn’t minimize any of it. “Sorrow and suffering, limit and loss, are a part of this reality, and to take away those hard human limits would be to take away our human lives, our shattering, struggling, beautiful, painful lives,” she writes.

With evidence of such darkness, it would be easy to fall into despair, but instead these sermons are filled with relentless hope. The boundless, radical love of God through Jesus Christ breathes on every page, and it is that love that strengthens us as the Body of Christ to live in the world and send God’s love back into it. “Even if we cannot know it in the moment, we are held, we are cherished, we matter. We must take that love and try to bring it into the world, in our small kindness and our small resistance,” she writes.

Instructions also provides an antidote to the Christian nationalism that so often dominates the public conversation in North America. Canon Helwig returns to Christianity’s roots as an outsider movement – a faith found not in the halls of power, but in the margins. And it’s only as the Body of Christ, all of us working together, that we can hope to help God’s kingdom break in. This is not a faith of individual salvation, but of working and praying and loving as a community to bring peace into a troubled world.

As Canon Helwig speaks again and again of the radical love of a God who chooses to join us in our own frailty and brokenness, and thereby make sacred our broken world, I can’t help but come away with a deep sense of wonder and gratitude that we, together, are called to plant our gardens in Babylon, to celebrate that excessive, unreasonable love, and to do whatever we can to make that love known in the world.

“We are the body, and this is the time, for we have no other bodies, and no other times. This is the year of God’s favour, because we have no other year. This is the place of fulfillment, because we have no other place.”

Instructions for the End of the World. By Maggie Helwig, June 2026. ISBN 9781552455210, e-ISBN 9781770568969, 240 pp, $24.95.

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About 130 people signed onto Zoom on the evening of June 14 to hear from the Rev. Leigh Kern and Bishop Andrew Asbil about their efforts to renew the Diocese of Toronto’s treaty relationships with the seven First Nations on whose land the diocese lives and worships.

The process began in the winter of 2025, when the Bishop’s Collaborative for Right Relations, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous clergy and laity, began an audit of the progress the diocese had made in implementing the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Of those 94 calls, 13 specifically name the Church. The collaborative found that the diocese had implemented only three of the 13 calls.

That audit spurred a longer conversation about Call to Action #46, which calls for the Church to “renew or establish Treaty relationships based on principles of mutual recognition, mutual respect, and shared responsibility for maintaining those relationships into the future.”

“Early in 2026, Leigh and I sent out letters to each of the chiefs and councils of the seven communities, asking if there might be an opportunity for us to meet together and talk about renewing our treaty relationships,” Bishop Andrew told the gathering.

Since then, they have heard back from five communities and visited four so far: the Chippewas of Rama, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Alderville First Nation and Curve Lake First Nation. They’re waiting to schedule a time with a fifth and are hoping to hear back from two more.

Before sharing the story of those visits, Kern, the diocese’s Right Relations Coordinator, began with some historical context – a history that is not in the past, she explained, but is living, present and ongoing.

First Nations in southern Ontario were forcibly displaced multiple times and had their land stolen from them repeatedly. While 1/7 of all Crown lands were set aside for the Anglican Church, many First Nations had to purchase their own reserve lands, which were later stolen from them again.

Treaty relationships, Kern explained, were meant to be ones of interconnection, interdependence and respect, renewed annually in ceremony and prayer. But treaties that were supposed to honour Indigenous rights, including the right to hunt and fish, instead took away those rights and often made smaller the already tiny reserves.

Before meeting with the First Nations chiefs and councils, Kern and the diocese’s archivists did careful research to better understand the Church’s history of colonialism and broken treaties.

“The sad part for us has been that the truth is actually so much more painful than even these high-level surface presentations,” Kern said. “This isn’t far-away history, it’s very close – the land under our feet.”

She and Bishop Asbil both felt it was essential to approach the First Nations communities with knowledge of each group’s specific stories.

“Not knowing our history is not an excuse anymore. It’s very important for us to hear the stories that are local to us,” said Bishop Asbil. “My eyes have certainly been opened to the stories.”

In each of the four meetings, Bishop Asbil brought a bundle of tobacco as a sign of welcome and gratitude. He offered words of repentance, confessing the sins of Christian colonialism and acknowledging the hurt and brokenness caused by the Anglican Church.

He and Kern offered a copper vessel to mark a relationship of cooperation and collaboration, a symbol of great respect for the Nations’ teachings, traditions and relationship with their territories. Purple fabric from a former Anglican Church represented the Church’s call to repentance and confession of sin, as well as the office of bishop. Smaller copper cups were presented to each member of council as a symbol of the diocese’s deep desire to renew the relationships. And a pottery bowl from a local artist, made from different clay bodies coming together, represented the beauty and abundance of the Great Lakes basin.

Bishop Asbil, Kern and Mary Asbil, who accompanied her husband on his visit to Curve Lake, all remarked how moving the experiences had been.

“There was in each of those rooms deep gratitude on the one hand, candour on the other hand,” said Bishop Asbil. “One of the comments that we heard on a number of occasions was, ‘We had no idea what you really wanted, and we didn’t know what you were going to say.’”

“There was deep stillness and silence in the room, a lot of emotion – both gratitude and also real honesty about survivor hurt,” said Mary Asbil. “We could just listen and be part of it and take that in.”

In a Q&A session following the Zoom presentation, those gathered wondered how they could engage with issues of reconciliation. Bishop Asbil and Kern both encouraged them to find ways of building relationships with local First Nations communities at the parish level.

“Building relationships is something we can all do,” said Kern. “It takes a lot to build trust and build relationships, and we can break the trust in a second. It is a journey we are on.”

Both emphasized that the diocese and its parishes are the ones responsible for making the effort to build relationships, not First Nations.

“It is our job to reconcile. We did the harm. We need to repent,” said Kern. “We need to do a 360 as a church.”

Bishop Asbil also emphasized that he carries the whole diocese with him in these conversations, speaking words of penance on behalf of every parish and its members.

“We wanted to have an evening like that so that you knew what we were saying, because we are inviting you into this work,” he said. “It is imperative that we do this work. We are summoned into this reconciliation ministry. I’m counting on you to keep all of us accountable in doing this work.”

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Citizenship for people born outside Canada used to be limited to just children of Canadian citizens, but since Parliament passed Bill C-3 in December, someone born outside Canada before Dec. 15, 2025, can be recognized as a Canadian citizen if they have a Canadian grandparent or great-grandparent. For that to happen, they need to apply for proof of citizenship – and that’s where archivists come in.

Since December, archives across Canada have seen a surge in ancestral research requests, and the archives for the Diocese of Toronto are no exception. Claire Wilton, the diocesan archivist, and Sarah McDougall, the archives assistant, have been fielding hundreds of requests from people looking for their Canadian ancestors.

“It’s been nonstop,” says McDougall. “We used to respond to genealogy requests, and I would say the whole thing would take about a week. We’re now telling people, hopefully by the end of this month or up to five weeks, because we are just so inundated. It’s extreme, and it was unexpected.”

Normally, the archives gets 75 to 100 genealogical requests each year. In the first three months of 2026, they were already up to 88 requests, with more coming in each day. The archives charges a $30 search fee for up to an hour of research, along with fees for certified copies, and the incoming funds show just how high the demand is.

“Normally we make about $1,200 a year in fees. We’d already made over $5,000 up to May,” says Wilton.

The ease of finding an elusive ancestor can depend on how much information a requestor has, often from sites like Ancestry.ca or FamilySearch.

“Some people have done a great deal of research, and they’re fairly certain of exactly where the person lived,” says Wilton.

Others know only that their great-grandparent was born in Ontario, requiring a lot more digging. In that case, the archives team often refers them to records from the Toronto Public Library or Library and Archives Canada to help narrow down the search. They say requestors are often surprised by what’s involved in searching historical records, and how little is available online.

“I think because Ancestry and FamilySearch are so pervasive now, they assume that our records must be available to that level as well, and they’re just not,” says McDougall. “It’s almost like an education moment. It’s been neat seeing people who have never given archives a second thought having to come to us. I do feel like people are learning, which is really cool.”

They both say they’re not surprised that many of the requests are coming from Americans who are uncomfortable with the current political climate in their home country. McDougall admits that she’s particularly attached to those cases.

“It’s the ones who are part of marginalized communities, such as LGBTQ folks and people of colour. Those are the ones I’m most concerned about, because they’re the ones who I think are the most afraid and want to come up here,” she says.

When a new request comes in, the first resource the archivists check is their map to see which churches existed at the time. That leads them to parish registers, where baptisms and marriages were recorded. With historical realities like changing parish boundaries, renamed townships, travelling clergy and new settlers on the move, finding the right record is part skill and part luck.

“It’s really a struggle for me, even though I know that it’s like a needle in a haystack for some of these. You really want to be able to find it,” says Wilton. “It’s so exciting when you’ve had a real string of not finding something and you finally find something. It’s like a big party.”

But success can be elusive. There’s simply not enough time to check every register, and sometimes requestors are left disappointed. Wilton guesses her success rate is about 40 per cent.

“It’s so hard when you’re just going to check one more church – what if it’s at that one? It’s really hard to give up, because you just don’t know,” says Wilton. “We’ve seen cases where a whole family is baptized when the oldest kid is 16, so that means you could look for a 16-year period. I usually do 10 years as a reasonable period to look for, but it’s challenging to give up.”

Both archivists have had cases where a name pops up somewhere unexpected during unrelated research, like a woman from Darlington Township who appeared in the registry for St. Philip, Etobicoke, some 80 kilometres away.

“You can never be 100 per cent certain that you’ve actually searched everywhere. And that’s hard, too, because Claire and I both want to do the best possible job, and you never know,” says McDougall.

Despite the increase in their workload, both archivists say they’re happy to help so many people looking into their family histories – though they’re also hoping the numbers start to subside soon.

“Sarah and I love genealogy, which I think makes us very much want to help people, but we also do have to respect the fact that we have a lot of internal work that still needs to be done,” says Wilton. “We’re just trying to find a rhythm and a balance whereby we’re able to help but also focus on our work.”

For her part, McDougall says she hopes this influx of attention will help more people realize how vital archives really are.

“This really is a moment that I never expected. I think people forget why archives are important, and this has been such an out-of-left-field reminder,” she says. “I’m hoping, especially at a time of financial austerity at all government levels for funding and grants, that this resurgence of need will show that this stuff is actually wildly important.”

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After considerable discussion, Synod Council unanimously approved a motion in support of developing and implementing a voluntary, opt-in fundraising campaign for parishes that are ready to proceed now.

The need for a capital campaign emerged from Cast the Net, the diocese’s strategic plan, which identified several priorities that would benefit from financial support. A feasibility study conducted in the spring of 2025 found strong readiness, capacity and support for a diocesan campaign. When Synod gathered last November, its members were more cautious, narrowly passing an amendment to the Priorities and Plans 2025-2027 to defer the plan to “engage all parishes in a diocesan major gift fundraising campaign” until Synod 2027.

In the months after Synod, Bishop Andrew Asbil and Peter Misiazsek, director of Stewardship Development, met with the diocese’s chancellor and vice-chancellors about how best to support the parishes that were ready to start a campaign while respecting Synod’s decision. The chancellors advised that an optional, parish-driven campaign wouldn’t contravene the vote at Synod.

“We had a chance to really look at the intent and the spirit of that motion, and we saw that it was really about the inclusion of every parish. Out of our feasibility study, we knew that there were at least 10 parishes in the diocese that really wanted to get started early, and we already had two parishes that were in the process,” says Bishop Asbil. “We really felt the need to be able to honour what Synod had decided, and at the same time wanting to pick up the deep desire of parishes to get going now.”

The idea was brought forward for a conversation at Synod Council in February, and discussions continued across its March and April meetings before its members voted in April.

“By meeting with the chancellor and having conversations with folks on Synod Council, I think we’ve been able to strike a balance between the concern expressed at Synod and the parishes that are really enthusiastic and believe that they have a compelling case within their own communities to move forward with something now,” says Mr. Misiaszek.

Ten parishes have stepped forward so far, eager to start a campaign because of local priorities that need financial attention, from deferred maintenance and building accessibility concerns to new ministry ideas.

“Timing is everything, and when a parish has vision for its own ministry, when they know that the diocesan family is going to be very supportive, there’s a real desire to not hold back, but to really let the Spirit of God just hop on and get going,” says Bishop Asbil.

This first phase until Synod 2027 will involve only parishes that have volunteered, while those that aren’t ready to move ahead won’t be expected or asked to join. Mr. Misiaszek says the first parishes provide a good sample of the make-up of in the diocese, accounting for about 10 per cent of average Sunday attendance and offertory giving.

“They represent a cross-section of parishes, from parishes that have over 300 people attending on a Sunday to those who have less than 50. Some are in the city, some are suburban and some rural,” he says.

With the help of professional fundraising consultants, each parish will develop a case for support that reflects its own needs. Parishes will be given a goal that represents about 125 per cent of their average annual offertories over the past three years, with pledged gifts being fulfilled over a five-year period. Parishes will keep the majority of the funds they raise, with smaller parishes keeping a higher percentage. The rest will go into a pool of funds for diocesan-wide priorities.

“They get to keep, at a minimum, 60 per cent for their own initiatives. If you’re a much smaller parish you could retain up to 75 per cent of funds. We’re even prepared to negotiate with parishes, because we want what’s in their best interest,” says Mr. Misiaszek.

Parishes will also keep 100 per cent of funds raised above and beyond their campaign goals.

The Synod Office and its consultants will take on much of the campaign’s administrative work, acknowledging and receipting gifts, maintaining donor relations, receiving funds and passing those funds along to parishes. The diocese will also absorb the up-front campaign costs, which Mr. Misiaszek anticipates will amount to about $400,000.

“We’re trying to make this as much of an easy win for parishes as possible,” he says.

He and Bishop Asbil are also hoping that early successes among this small group will encourage the rest of the diocese and help shape the roll-out of a broader campaign.

“This is a really important time for us to be able to listen, to watch, to pay close attention to what’s happening on the ground in each of the parishes,” says Bishop Asbil. “They’ll teach us where the passion for ministry is, and where we need to be really supportive in their endeavours.”

While work to set up the campaign gets underway, Mr. Misiaszek anticipates that the 10 parishes will get started in earnest in early 2027. In the meantime, both he and Bishop Asbil are eager to support the enthusiastic first group in the coming months.

“I am really excited by the opportunity for us to be able to support ministry where it’s happening on the ground, and to be able to help the wider diocese take this moment in time to see that the Spirit of God is calling us to ministry,” says Bishop Asbil. “We are having, I think, a moment in our diocese and beyond where there is an awakening and a spiritual renewal. Here’s an opportunity for us to be able to say, How do we build ministry for today and tomorrow?”

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On the afternoon of May 17, St. James Cathedral will host a beacon event for Thy Kingdom Come, the global ecumenical movement that calls Christians to a special season of prayer from Ascension to Pentecost – this year, May 14-24. Started by the Church of England in 2016, the movement now reaches around the globe as Christians join in prayer that more people would come to know Jesus.

The theme for 2026 is “God with us,” exploring God’s presence in the joys and sorrows of life. Over 11 days, the campaign will explore bible stories that demonstrate God’s transformative power and love at work in the lives of people and places. Participants are called to pray for five people in their lives, that they will experience the life-changing love of God and choose to follow Him.

“It’s encouraging Christians to think about how the good news would fit into the questions or challenges that people in their lives are having, and to see if they can find solace and purpose in the good news of Jesus,” says the Rev. Matthew Waterman, assistant curate at St. James Cathedral, who’s helping to plan the beacon event.

A representative from the Anglican Communion approached the cathedral’s leadership team in the fall, looking for cathedrals around the Communion to lead events for their regions. The beacon events are meant to be focal points for prayer and worship, and to serve as a visible reminder that local communities are part of a worldwide network of prayer.

“The hope is to draw more attention to Thy Kingdom Come so that more individual parishes will be inspired to participate in their own contexts,” says Mr. Waterman.

Plans for the event at St. James Cathedral are well underway. Archbishop Shane Parker, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, will attend, and Mr. Waterman has reached out to congregations to invite participants and worship leaders who reflect the diversity of the diocese. The liturgy will include many different languages, including Tamil, Twi, Spanish, Tagalog and Cantonese, in readings, prayers and liturgical expressions.

“We’re aiming to think about not just how the gospel is heard in the Church, but how the gospel is heard by those around us. We’re focusing on some of the major immigrant ethnic groups in Toronto, for them to bring testimonies about responding to the gospel from their contexts and their experience sharing it with others within their cultural groups,” says Mr. Waterman.

In addition to inviting people to join the worship service in-person, the cathedral team will livestream the service to share the Toronto experience of Thy Kingdom Come both locally and with Christians around the world.

“We will encourage people to have watch parties, maybe in their parishes or with their friends, to join in the experience,” says Mr. Waterman. “Even around the world, anyone at any place can tune in and see what we’re doing here in Toronto.”

The beacon event comes at a fitting moment for the Diocese of Toronto, which recently concluded its Season of Spiritual Renewal. The emphasis on prayer, listening and discernment from the past two years echoes many of the themes at the heart of Thy Kingdom Come, encouraging individuals and parishes to root themselves in prayer for their neighbours and the wider world and inviting them to build on practices they began during the Season of Spiritual Renewal.

“I hope they feel more inspired or more equipped to share the good news, and maybe more aware of where there’s a need for that good news,” says Mr. Waterman. “They may think more about who’s around them in their neighbourhood, that perhaps they could share the good news and have their parish represent the diversity that’s around them in whatever form.”

As plans develop, Mr. Waterman and the cathedral team are looking forward to sharing more details about the service.

“Stay tuned! We’ll have more exciting, specific details that we can share as it gets closer,” he says.

In the meantime, Thy Kingdom Come’s website provides free resources for individuals, families and churches, from prayer journals to a kids’ cartoon series. To learn more, visit www.thykingdomcome.global.

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Bishop Andrew Asbil revealed that the invitation to Archbishop Parker came mere moments after he was installed as primate in June. “Archbishop Shane is no stranger to stepping into difficult situations,” Bishop Asbil told the audience. “After the service, I said to him, ‘By the by, Archbishop, we’ve already booked you to be our guest speaker.’”

In his remarks after dinner on Friday evening, Archbishop Parker explored an analogy comparing the Church to a stained-glass window, originally coined by the Very Rev. Henry Chadwick, a 20^th-century English theologian.

“The stained glass reflects the light. It’s got colours, it reflects the goodness of the gospel, the love and compassion and gentleness and mercy and courage and justice of God,” he said. “The stained glass that is the stuff of the Church needs to be held by oak and iron.”

In some cases, he said, the Canadian Church hasn’t paid enough attention to the oak and iron – its structures and canons – and the stained glass has tumbled to the ground. “In other cases, we’ve spent so much time thinking about the oak and iron that we’ve forgotten its purpose. The stained glass is clouded over.”

He went on to say that the Cast the Net vision and calls to action, which have guided the diocese since they were unanimously approved by Synod in 2023, have achieved a balance between addressing the oak and iron and letting the stained glass shine.

“You have to look at property and structures, and the way parishes are configured and where ministry is happening, and all of those things that support the stained glass,” he said.

He likened the work the diocese has done through Cast the Net to the national church’s Creating Pathways document, approved by General Synod last June.

“We have focused too much on ourselves and our Church and keeping it going with these great cumbersome structures, instead of realizing that we may need to cast some of them away,” he said. “For years, we allowed ourselves to be changed without responding to what we see around us and realizing we must begin to guide change, to feel different, to look different, importantly to behave differently.”

Archbishop Parker encouraged Synod’s work in reflecting on the 20 Calls of Cast the Net to discern what God is calling the diocese to do, while not getting lost in either the oak and iron or the stained glass.

“You’re called to tell the good story through your structures, through your ministries, through the light of Christ, the love of Christ, the justice, the gentleness, the courage, the forgiveness of Christ,” he said. “You’re called to make your Church strong and vital and vibrant so you can pivot it to see Christ, and to allow Christ to shine through the stained glass of what God has called you to be.”

Archbishop Parker joined Synod in its business session on Saturday, and he spoke near the end of the morning to reflect what he had been observing.

“It’s remarkable just to see the diversity in this room, the relationships between individuals, and it’s something to be thankful for,” he said.

He remarked on some of the tensions that had surfaced over the course of the day, explaining that tension is a creative place.

“It means that something is being shaped, something is being worked on. You are being worked on by the Holy Spirit,” he said. “The tension that I was hearing, and you were hearing as well, is the tension between what is and what can be – what we see before us now and the future perhaps that we have a glimpse of, but we do not fully see.”

He implored Synod members to remember the water of baptism. “Remember that you were baptized in the name of the living God, and you reside with the cross and marked as Christ’s own forever,” he said. “Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. The water of baptism, the sign of the cross, the promise that we are Christ’s own forever, says to us that all shall be well.”

He praised the diocese for its work of deliberate discernment through Cast the Net. “When I look at you, and I look at this expression of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, I see a diocese that’s poised to thrive,” he said.

“You are modeling what every church, every diocese in our country needs to do, which is to do the deep dive and look carefully at themselves, look carefully at what we stand on, and to identify plans and priorities that will allow you to change and to grow into the full stature of Christ,” he continued. “To position yourselves so the light of Christ shines through the well-supported stained glass that is the ministry God gave you to conduct. All shall be well.”

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