CIRCULAR TO PARISHIONERS WEEK 72 - OCT. 15, 2005
OCTOBER FOOD DRIVE OFF TO A GRRREAT START !
Thank you, St. Martin’s, for the generous response to the traditional seasonal food drive. We received
142 lbs of food which was weighed and verified by four people, and delivered by 2:00 pm on Sunday.
Due to increased need, food banks in the GTA are well below target. Consequently, we will continue
to collect and deliver food for the remainder of the month. Our goal is to deliver 1000 lbs of food by
the 31st October.
We know that with your help we can achieve this!
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I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving day with family and friends and enjoyed a wonderful
meal. I thought and reflected on just how blest we are as Canadians to enjoy the abundance and variety
of food at our table. But isn’t that what we’re supposed to do each year at Thanksgiving?
This year, however, something at St. Martin’s was different. When I walked into the church for 9:00
am Mass last Sunday, several parishioners and I were carrying bags looking to place our food
donations in a container. We were distressed that on this day of Thanksgiving the food bin was not in
sight and nothing was being done to help the poor and the hungry. It is well known that, over the years,
our parish was one of the largest contributors to Foodpath in Mississauga - that is, until the volunteers
were banished from the church. Today, Foodpath provides assistance to 10,000 needy people every
month here in this city. They state that the need is far greater now than ever before because of higher
usage.
No doubt, Fr. Beltran saw much poverty and misery when serving as a missionary in a poor country,
Paraguay. If he has seen the face of poverty how could he refuse a food drive? Both the Cardinal and
the Bishop have stated that his policies will remain in force during his sabbatical. If this is so, are we
also to think that policies are more important than the poor and hungry in our city because policies must
not be changed? Jesus, during his short life on earth, ministered to the marginalized and the
downtrodden. He showed us how Love expresses itself. I applaud those parishioners on the street who
follow his example and have taken up the cause of the city’s needy. Remember that we are St.
Martin’s parishioners and we do the right thing. Drop off whatever foodstuffs you can at the
entrances/exits of the church parking lot after the Saturday/Sunday Masses in October.
(Letter from a parishioner - name and
address withheld)
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WHO WILL SAVE OUR CHURCH?
Sometimes it is criminal to be too accepting of a situation. We are appalled, for example, when a
person watches a 5 year old slowly starve to death and does nothing. We condemn that person’s
apathy. Yet here at St. Martin’s some of us are watching our parish slowly disintegrate into a shadow
of itself and are accepting it. Why are we not all appalled and condemn it? Aren’t we all responsible for
the return to health of our beloved parish?
So what to do? "Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and
religious. It is up to the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church.
Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops and your
religious act like religious.” (Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen address to the Knights of Columbus, June
1972)
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Give us your feedback by email or phone call: Aisling Egan 416 671-4710
Pat DeAngelis 416 809-1819 Duncan Walker 905 277-9825
Lucy Pires 905 273-6093 Dunstan Bazely 905 275-3946
Judy Byrnes 905 275-1536 Patricia Russell 905 279-9205
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Email: bishop.boissonneau@rogers.com Fax: 416 207-4984
ambrozic@archtoronto.org Fax: 416 934-3452
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