Following the service, Bishop Shaw unveiled and blessed a mosaic that depicts the current church building, the earlier church that burnt down in 1908 and two local churches – long closed – that were once joint parishes with St. George’s.

Lunch was enjoyed in the recently renovated parish hall, followed presentations to the bishop, one of which was the presentation of the Anniversary Book. The stories in the book are about the congregation – parishioners who care for each other and the community at large. The book was written over six months at the beginning of 2019 and is available for all on the church’s renewed website, www.stgeorgesgrafton.org.

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The group consisted of about 145 individuals, including Japanese Canadians who endured the internment nearly 80 years ago, their families, members of Holy Trinity and the wider Anglican family, and people affiliated with various groups.

The night consisted of an abundant potluck dinner hosted by Holy Trinity and the group Japanese Canadians for Social Justice. The evening featured musical performances by Bruce Tatemichi and Mauro Bellotto as well as a sing-a-long led by Alan Gasser and Emma Whitla.

Holy Trinity member Joy Kogawa, who lived through the internment but also experienced the remorse of the Canadian government when it delivered an apology in 1988, gave a heartfelt word of thanks to those who stood with Japanese Canadians during their times of trial.

John Brewin, former MP and the son of Andrew Brewin, who took up the cause to fight for the rights of Japanese Canadians, reminded the audience of how fear that was encouraged by the Canadian government was the catalyst for this injustice to unfold. He emphasized how his father’s Christian faith was a faith in action, a banner to be worn on one’s heart, not on one’s sleeve.

Featured speaker Ed Broadbent, a former leader of the federal NDP party, re-acknowledged the injustice and encouraged people to be on alert for similar situations fed by fear in today’s political climate. Mr. Broadbent was also a witness to the Canadian government’s apology 31 years ago, when he stood up in the House of Commons to read from Ms. Kogawa’s book Obasan, a novel of a young child’s life during internment. He was representative of those who empathized with the wronged and shone light on the ability of our hearts to hold goodness and carry others.

The event of gratitude towards these buoyant hearts created an uplifting evening with a message that hope can overshadow despair, trust can outweigh doubt and good hearts, individually and collectively, can find the friends hidden within the enemy of fear.

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The father was a human rights lawyer in Baghdad and a member of the country’s Sunni minority. One day he received a letter with a bullet in it, along with a note that he and his family would be killed. The family left Baghdad and eventually crossed over into Jordan, becoming refugees. With the help of Grace Church on-the-Hill in Toronto, they arrived here in September.

Over the past five years, Grace Church on-the-Hill has helped three refugee families – two from Syria and one from Iraq – come to Canada. It’s a remarkable achievement, considering how much work and money is involved.

“It’s probably the most worthwhile thing I’ve done in my life,” says Phil Arthur, co-chair of the church’s refugee committee.

The church’s recent refugee efforts began in 2014 after a visit by the Rev. Nadim Nassar, a Syrian-born, London-based Anglican priest who is the head of a charity that provides programs for peace and reconciliation among young people in the Middle East. Following an impassioned address by Mr. Nassar about the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the church formed a refugee sponsorship committee and began taking the necessary steps to bring a family to Canada.

Working with AURA (the Anglican United Refugee Alliance), the church sponsored Mr. Nassar’s nephew and his wife, George and Maria Nasra, who had fled Syria for Lebanon. The couple arrived in Toronto in 2016 and, with the help of parishioners, eventually found jobs in their fields and an apartment. They now have a baby and are members of the church.

The second family had also fled from Syria to Lebanon, but their situation was more challenging. “They were holed up in an apartment in Beirut, not doing very well, and said they would like to send their daughter to school,” explains Mr. Arthur. With some of the funds it had raised for the sponsorship, the church was able to pay for her to go to school. “She was incredibly happy, as were her parents,” he says.

The family, Gergi and Nadin Hoosh and their daughter Carla, arrived in Toronto in 2018 and parishioners once again undertook a multitude of tasks to get them settled, including providing accommodations, finding English classes, helping the parents find jobs in their fields and enrolling the daughter in school. The family have since become members of the church.

Mr. Arthur learned about the third family’s plight from a friend. Shortly after the human rights lawyer and his family – his wife and three sons – left Baghdad for Jordan, a death squad showed up at their house. The family had made it to Amman, Jordan’s capital.

Working with AURA, the church once again stepped up to the plate, raising the necessary funds to bring the family to Canada. With the help of parishioners, Sabah and Asmaa Alwan and their sons have found an apartment, the three boys are enrolled in school, and the parents are taking English lessons and exploring job options.

Bringing the three families to Canada has taken a lot of work and money – at least $35,000 per family – but Mr. Arthur says it has been worth it. “It’s been very rewarding for the congregation as a whole,” he says. “We do a lot of outreach, but this has touched parishioners more than anything we’ve done. One thing that has delighted me has been the enthusiasm of the volunteers. The talent we have here is just amazing.”

Reflecting on the power of outreach work like refugee sponsorship, the Rev. Canon Peter Walker, incumbent of Grace Church on-the-Hill, says, “The more we give away to others, the more we are given, and the more we receive. The more energy and effort we do on behalf of others, the more we truly become who we, as a community, are called to be.”

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The gardens are a collaboration, begun in 2017, between Peterborough GreenUp and St. Luke, Peterborough. As discussions progressed, the idea of vegetable gardens for local residents emerged. Peterborough GreenUp, through its Sustainable Urban Neighbourhoods program, was developing links with people in the Curtis Creek area of East City Peterborough.

At the same time, St. Luke’s was forging connections with the local neighbourhood. “We were searching for ways to connect with the local community at a grassroots level, to connect with individuals not currently involved with the parish,” says Lorraine Brown, a churchwarden.

Through the winter of 2018, the co-coordinators of the garden project met at the church with interested neighbours to determine scheduling, garden design, responsibilities of the gardeners, and the role the parish would play. In the spring of 2019, staff from Johnston’s Greenhouses removed the sod on the church lawn to create a series of individual garden plots. A few days later, the neighbourhood gardeners prepared the gardens for planting. As the gardens took shape, Anica James, the neighbourhood coordinator, added a few fruit trees and wildflowers.

Jill McCullough summed it all up. “It has been wonderful being involved from the ground up, from lawn to happy gardeners and now harvest time. Many people walking by comment on what a wonderful thing the church has done with this use of space.”

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We started the retreat with a snack and “ice-breaker” competitions led by Cormac Culkeen of St. John, West Toronto, who was also our emcee for the weekend. In the evening was worship, and Andrew Coleman of Christ Church, Deer Park talked about the different ways that people pray and what prayer meant to him.

The next day we awoke to drier weather, which we were grateful for as there was a large game of Capture the Flag to start the morning. We then gathered for worship. A huge thank-you goes out to the St. Paul, Bloor Street youth band, produced by Ian Koiter, who led the worship music for the weekend. The juniors and seniors then split, with the juniors going to “The Underground” to dig deeper into prayer while the seniors stayed in “The Hanger” to explore how personalities can be brought into prayer. The day continued with afternoon activities, including high ropes, wall climbing, skateboarding and playing in the gym. The evening featured an epic game of “Head, Shoulders, Knee and Cups!” We then participated in our last session. The juniors walked the labyrinth (graciously provided by St. Thomas, Brooklin) and prayed together through words, movement and silence, while the seniors discussed how their personalities influenced how they prayed and how to make prayer a meaningful activity in their lives. We rounded off a very busy day with a game of “Flame Battlers” – always a crowd favourite!

On our final day, we worshipped and celebrated the Eucharist together. We were very happy to have Bishop Jenny Andison, our link bishop from the College of Bishops, come to the retreat and celebrate with us. In her homily, she reinforced that “God wants to hear from you” and that we need to be bold and that God loves us. We ended our event with a group photo and an amazing lunch. We look forward to another retreat next September.

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The installation of the chapter and the admission of new members took place during the celebration of the Eucharist, where Bishop Andrew Asbil served as the inductor and Timmy Pascual, a BSA member from the Philippines, was the presenter.

The Brotherhood of St. Andrew is a fellowship of men and boys that are brought together to testify to the lordship of Jesus. It started in an Anglican parish in Chicago as a prayer and Bible study group for laymen in 1883. The brotherhood became the oldest missionary arm of the Episcopal Church, spreading throughout the other provinces of the Anglican Communion. The chapter at San Lorenzo Ruiz is the first in Toronto and the second in Canada. All of the members who were admitted on Sept. 15 were immigrants from the Philippines.

At San Lorenzo Ruiz, BSA members serve in many capacities, some as leaders in ministries, some as altar servers, some in the church’s music ministry, and others who just lend a helping hand. The brotherhood also helps parishioners when they move from one place of residence to another; they are in charge of moving the person’s belongings.

Members of the brotherhood at San Lorenzo Ruiz gather once a month. Not only do they discuss ways they can respond to their baptismal covenant, but they share their stories about life here in Canada. The brotherhood also serves as a support system for new immigrants to Toronto who are looking for a place where they can belong.

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The Rev. Canon Donald Landon was a remarkable man. He served for 37 years as an Anglican priest at four parishes in the Diocese of Algoma. Upon his retirement, he returned to his childhood home in Toronto and set about to find a parish. He attended different churches each week and finally found what he was looking for at the Church of the Advent. He served there as honorary assistant and later as an interim priest-in-charge.

When Canon Landon died in 2012, we learned that, not only had he cared for and supported his five parishes during his lifetime, but he also left them a legacy that would continue to support them after his death. Each congregation received a significant financial bequest with the condition that endowments be established so that the money would be invested and only the interest used by the parish. He also left specific items to the Church of the Advent, including his grandfather’s 100-year-old coin collection, with the instructions that after valuation they be “sold at the highest possible market price” with the proceeds added to The Landon Endowment, to be established as a memorial to his parents.

The coins were evaluated at $260,400 and an offer was received to purchase them for that amount. While the other executors may have accepted the offer, our beloved Norman Baker ODT, (also one of the executors,) held fast to Canon Landon’s wish to have the coins sold at the highest possible market price. That required cataloguing the massive collection. Mr. Baker and his daughter Karen spent a year cataloging the coins, readying them for auction. What a gift of time and talent!

In 2015, the Landon Estate collection was sold at public auction, the net proceeds of which were more than $1.2 million. This was added to the amount of the original bequest and invested with the Diocese of Toronto’s Consolidated Trust Fund. With the amalgamation of four parishes that included the Church of the Advent, the Landon Endowment came to St. Mary and St. Martha.

The parish receives an annual distribution of about $60,000 from the Landon Endowment, allowing us to invest in ministry, personnel or innovative programming. Legacy giving can be transformative as it helps secure the promise of ministry for years to come. It is a testament to one’s values and one’s beliefs.

The following words from a sermon delivered by Canon Landon in 2003 and shared at St. Mary and St. Martha’s first vestry meeting ring true for us today: “The Advent’s story calls us to play our part today in maintaining and enhancing what we’ve inherited. It calls us to give generous financial support so that what Christ has for us to do can be adequately funded. It calls for a clear vision and dedicated endeavours so that the service and outreach of this congregation will be carried forward for Christ’s glory and the sharing of His amazing love.” 

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As colonialism swept across Indigenous territories, one of the major pathways of violence against Indigenous nationhood was to lay systematic assault on Indigenous families to undermine clan systems of governance. The Church-run Indian Residential Schools stole generations of children from their loving bonds, and countless loved ones never returned home, some still lying in unmarked graves. On Sept. 30 at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, a ceremony was held to honour those who died at the residential schools and recite some of their names, for the first time ever in public. There are not yet accurate numbers of how many children died in the residential schools. In 2015, the Unmarked Burials Working Group of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission began its investigation. It accounted for 4,200 deceased children – yet this work is far from over, as some experts estimate the number to be at least 8,000 children. I invite you in this moment to take a breath to honour those thousands of little ones who never made it home from residential school.

Canada is facing a reckoning, as the names come forward and unmarked graves are unearthed. The Canadian state was established by undermining and systemically assaulting Indigenous governance and sovereignty over this land. Concurrent with the taking of children from families is the practice of the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people. Sterilization was a punishment used to discipline girls in several residential schools. In some communities, such as Naujaat, Nunavut, 50 per cent of Inuit women of age were forcibly sterilized in the 1970s. From the 1930s to the 1970s in Alberta and British Columbia, the forced sterilization of Indigenous women was policy and practice. Tragically, forced sterilization and child apprehension are not bygone realities of the past for many Indigenous families – they are ongoing experiences. The destabilization, sterilization and forced breaking up of Indigenous families is willful policy, deliberate acts of genocide in continuum with the initial colonization of these lands and spiritual ecosystems.

The term genocide was created by Raphael Lemkin, who wrote that “colonization was in itself intrinsically genocidal.” He saw genocide as the tactics of disfiguring and destroying a community’s ability to continue and perpetuate its identity. The UN adopted his definition in 1948 and states that genocide is: “Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) killing members of the group;

(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Canada has certainly fulfilled this definition of genocide, and still survivors continue to rise up and courageously reveal a path towards healing, justice, and truth. As Christians, we are called to proclaim the truth and pray for the mercy of God, as we have often been complicit and active in acts of terror on Indigenous bodies and bonds of love.

I honour all who grieve the loss of their children to child apprehension, the residential schools, and those who were forcibly sterilized in a genocidal act to stop the babbling voices of Indigenous babies on this land. In an era of great forces of destruction, may we rise in prayerful solidarity with all families separated by borders, prisons, detention centres, wars, ecological disasters, and all forces that attack love. Our young ones have inherited a landscape violated by colonial greed and pollution, yet their prophetic voices resound from every continent that the time to repent has come. We must awaken and change our path of exploitation, desecration, and ongoing colonialism. When Indigenous children are not held in their rightful place as sacred beings, our society spirals into deeper sickness, and requires our commitment to healing and repentance. May we all commit ourselves, our souls and bodies, to the prophet Isaiah’s dream, that all beings of creation shall be at peace with each other and a little child shall lead. Amen, so be it.

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Advent and Christmas can become obscene. You know what I mean. People spending money they don’t have, on things they don’t need, to impress people they often don’t like. And while there certainly will be moments of peace and holiness for us all over the coming weeks, there can also be incredible pressure to have the “perfect Christmas” – beautifully decorated house, fabulous food, luxurious gifts – all of which boils down to a message of “consume, consume, consume.”

Christians have been setting aside the season of Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, for at least 1,500 years, with the first recorded mention of Advent being at the Council of Tours in 567 A.D. It has traditionally been a season of spiritual preparation both for the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ and for his Second Coming. The first and second coming of Christ are the pivotal points of human history, the culmination of the revolution that God wishes to bring about in this world. The revolution that Jesus brings sees the first being last and the last being first, sinners being offered forgiveness, creation being stewarded rather than exploited, kings thrown down from their thrones, the lowly being lifted, and the hungry filled with good things. So, if Advent is an opportunity to prepare for the coming revolution that Jesus inaugurates, how can we join the revolution and rebel against the siren call of consumerism this year?

As Anglicans united across our diverse diocese, let us search out ways to replace consumption with compassion this Advent and Christmas season. A wonderful resource that many churches are using is called “Advent Conspiracy” (www.adventconspiracy.org). Advent Conspiracy invites us to adopt these four habits (or four virtues):

• Worship fully. Advent begins and ends with Jesus. If you are not doing so already, take on the habit of daily scripture reading and prayer, create an Advent wreath as a family, and use an Advent calendar with your children and grandchildren.
• Spend less. Free up your resources to support things that truly matter. Calculate what you normally spend on gifts and entertaining during the Advent/Christmas season and resolve to spend 10 per cent less this year.
• Give more. Give more intentionally and relationally. You could do some of your Christmas shopping through the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, www.pwrdf.org.
• Love all. Radically love others as Jesus did. Is there a broken relationship in your life that you could be intentionally praying about through Advent? Invite a work colleague or friend to join you for one of the Advent or Christmas services at your church.

Advent is a season of waiting – waiting in the darkness for God’s hopes and dreams for the world to unfurl. While God’s reign will not fully be realized until the New Heaven and the New Earth have begun, we are invited to co-operate with the Holy Spirit and shine as lights in the darkness of our present age. Let us be known as people of compassion rather than consumption, preparing ourselves, our families and the communities we are part of, for the coming revolution of Jesus. Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus!

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Dr. Lydia Pedersen, a United Church member and a church musician for more than 50 years, is offering a workshop on hymn writing. Anyone can attend and no experience is necessary.

“Most people think that writing a hymn is a terribly esoteric thing to do and only clergy ever think of doing it, but I want to debunk that myth by showing that regular people can do it, too,” she says.

Ms. Pedersen, who teaches hymn writing to seminary students at Emmanuel College in Toronto, says people want to write hymns for all sorts of different reasons. Some simply want to express their love of God, while others want to mark special occasions or use language and imagery that are more relevant to their context.

“Things are changing in society,” she explains. “We need hymns for the LGBTQ community. We need hymns about the ecological crisis. Things that we didn’t worry about thirty years ago have become crucial issues, and people need to sing about them in church.”

She says hymns are an important way of forming a person’s theology, often more so than the Sunday sermon. “Ministers don’t like to hear that, but it happens to be true. People will go home still humming the hymn, but they’ve already forgotten what they heard in the sermon. So hymns are terribly important in the liturgy.”

Her workshops have attracted people from across the spectrum, from clergy and church musicians to lay people who just wanted to put their thoughts on paper. A workshop held at St. Paul, Uxbridge last February resulted in new hymns about caring for Creation, reconciling with Indigenous people, celebrating a church’s anniversary and being on a faith journey.

The workshop, called “Write a New Song: A workshop for amateur hymn writers like you!” is usually one day long but can be divided into evenings or a weekend. To the metre of a familiar tune, participants are guided in writing the lyrics of a congregational song on a topic of their own choosing. In the process, they learn the mechanics of hymn poetry: metre, accents, tune matching, rhyme, the use of inclusive language and working with the hymnal index.

She says participants explore their personal beliefs, fears, longings and hopes as they share their work with their fellow writers, learning from each other as they go. “You may find yourself discussing with your neighbour the naming and nature of God in a multi-faith society. You may want to write a hymn for a friend’s same-sex marriage, or a grandchild’s baptism. Your hymn may be a cry for justice for refugees, or a lament for our natural world in crisis.”

At the end of the workshop, participants have a complete hymn text to take home with them; if time allows, the group has a hymn-sing of their work. “Participants have said they’ve gained a whole new appreciation for hymns as liturgy, art and profound expressions of faith,” she says.

The Rev. Sherman Hesselgrave, incumbent of Holy Trinity, Trinity Square, has taken part in the workshop and says it was an “eye-opening” experience. Mr. Hesselgrave is the president of the Southern Ontario Chapter of the Hymn Society and a hymn writer in his own right, having composed about a dozen hymns, one of which will be sung at the diocese’s upcoming Synod in November.

He says hymn writing is as important today as it ever was, and he encourages people to try their hands at it. “It’s something that might not have occurred to a lot of people: that the hymns that are in the books that get published have to start out somewhere, and they’re not all written by famous people from the 17^th century.”

He cites a project that Holy Trinity undertook about 30 years ago that produced three hymns that are in Common Praise, the hymnal of the Anglican Church of Canada. One of the hymns, “Living Justice,” is also in the Lutheran hymnal and has been sung in many other denominations. “That happened out of an effort by a local congregation and now it’s sung all over the world,” he says.

As society changes, so should hymns, he says. “Human beings are never in the same place forever. Our relationship with God evolves, so I think it’s natural to have ongoing, new expressions of how we feel about what God is doing in our lives and in the world.”

The Southern Ontario Chapter of the Hymn Society is offering a workshop on singing new texts to old tunes, new texts with new tunes, and worship songs from other countries. The workshop will be held on Nov. 17 at 2:30 p.m. at Islington United Church, 25 Burnhamthorpe Rd., Toronto. All are invited. Visit the chapter’s website, www.sochs.org.

For more information about Ms. Pedersen’s workshop or to host it at your church, contact her at Lydia.pedersen@symptico.ca.

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