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Registration for the Sacrament of Confirmation is now available. It is available to those aged 12 years and older. The next celebration of Confirmation in our parish will be in 2024.
Please click on this link for further details. You will be required to wear a mask upon entering the Shrine Church and wear it at all times. The only time during Mass the mask is temporarily removed is when consuming Holy Communion to the side of the Communion line.
To financially support our parish, please visit the DONATE section of the parish website, mail donations to: Our Lady of the Rockies, 2 Silvertip Trail, Canmore, AB, T1W-2Z7, or bring them to the parish office during regular office hours. Click here for the current parish financials. Please scroll down this home page for spiritual reflections and homilies by Fr. Nathan. PRIVATE PRAYER AND DEVOTIONS The Shrine Church is open for private prayer and devotion Click here for Drop In times. Due to Masses, Weddings and other Sacramental celebrations on the weekends, there are no scheduled times for private prayer and devotion, though if the church doors are open and no celebrations are taking place, you are welcome to visit the church. Out of courtesy to others, please observe reverent silence during these scheduled times of private prayer and devotion. 
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ADORATION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Adoration will take place on Tuesday evenings from 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm with the Holy Rosary and time for silent contemplation. SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION Tuesday: 7:00-7:45pm Anyone requesting the celebration of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and the Last Rites for the dying can contact Fr Nathan via the emergency parish line at 403-675-5044. |
Spiritual Reflections from a Priest in the Rockies
To watch Live-streamed Sunday and Weekday Masses from various parishes and at different times in the Diocese of Calgary, please click here
Homily Notes for 2nd Sunday of OT, Year B (2021): 1 Sam 3:3-10,19; 1 Cor 6:13-15,17-20; Jn 1:35-42
During these Winter months when we still see more and more visitors, I invite you to please consider assisting our new shrine church by signing up not only to attend Mass but also to offer some of your time in a volunteer position to assure the Masses we have scheduled can take place. These volunteer positions are necessary for Mass to occur in this time to be in accord with the guidelines set forward by the Diocese of Calgary for the celebration of the Holy Mass during Phase 2 of the reopening of our province in the midst of this pandemic. All volunteers are guaranteed a chance to attend the Holy Mass they sign up for.
It will only take a small amount of your day to volunteer in this capacity, for example, helping to clean the church after Mass only takes about 15 minutes. But more than volunteering it is a way to offer an act of charity and service to Our Lord and His Holy Mother in assuring we can offer the Eucharist for the Glory of God and the spiritual nourishment of His People.
I invite you to take time today to make a Spiritual Communion, using the following formula or one of your own choosing:
My Jesus,
I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart.
I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You.
Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen."
St. Alphonsus di Liguori
In Jesus through Mary, Fr. Nathan
To watch Live-streamed Sunday and Weekday Masses from various parishes and at different times in the Diocese of Calgary, please click here
Homily Notes for 2nd Sunday of OT, Year B (2021): 1 Sam 3:3-10,19; 1 Cor 6:13-15,17-20; Jn 1:35-42
- One of my first spiritual directors was a wise old Benedictine Monk, who like Treebeard in the LOTR, spoke very slowly, careful and with no big rush to share his thoughts and words of wisdom with me.
- Among his sage musings that have stuck with me for nearly 20 years was the recommendation to begin anytime of prayer with the hallowed words of the Prophet and Judge Samuel “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”
- Though Fr Gregory did warn me to actually intend to follow through with those words if I uttered them, for many might speak them but what they actually mean is not “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” but rather “Listen up Lord, for your servant is talking!”
- It is not that we are at fault when we speak to God and ask that we be heard, but too often that is the only way we commune with the Lord, a one-way conversation of requests and demands but with a lack of finesse and patience to also be still and listen.
- Samuel learned from his youth to listen to the voice of the Lord, which in OT is often an audible voice but also was a silent and deep understanding in the depth of one’s heart. Samuel’s willingness to listen served him well in his vocation as prophet of God and Judge of his people before he anointed Saul their first king. Though he is also an example of what happens when one begins to no longer listen to God’s voice, which tragically lead his two sons to commit grave and vile crimes against God’s people because of Samuel’s unwillingness to correct them, being a painful warning that just because one was willing to listen to God in the past does not mean they will continue to do so if they do not make the constant effort to listen.
- So too did the Apostles discover that if they were to follow Jesus of Nazareth, they had to first come, see and listen to the words that bring Eternal Life if they were in turn going to live and preach as their Master spoke and taught. Whatever Our Lord said on that fateful day convinced St Peter that he was hearing the voice of the Messiah, though St. Peter too would learn that when he failed to listen to the Master and utter rash words of his own thoughts and opinions, Jesus was not afraid to rebuke him as a satan and even foretold his betrayal, not for a lack of love on Peter’s part, but an inability to listen and understand the hard teachings of Jesus of the need to bear the cross and suffer for being a follower of the Lamb.
- Finally, we learn today of the remarkable capacity of St. Paul to listen to the voice of God and trust that by doing so he would be lead along very difficult paths and commanded to teach on very controversial and hard to hear topics. For too long Saul had closed his ears to the voice of God in his zeal to defend the traditions of his people. But once struck blind, he turned his life to Christ and also unplugged his ears to his own ego and self-centred practice of his faith to become a zealous, courageous yet humble herald of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
- But the more St Paul listened to the voice of God, the more he began to realize he was being called to preach some very unpopular teachings, which were not his own theological opinions on certain matters, but the commands of the Holy Spirit to preach the saving doctrine of Jesus Christ and His Church.
- When he arrived in Corinth, a decadent, sophisticated, and what we might call today progressive culture and city state, many of his words were not well received, especially when he began to teach on hot button topics like sexual morality to the Corinthians, many of whom had become Christians, but were not willing to accept what Christ taught on such matters as the indissolubility of marriage or that sexual love was only to be shared between a married man and woman.
- But the more he listened to the voice of the Lord, the more he knew he had to teach, even if he was hated for doing so, for as he himself once said “woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ”
- Speak Lord, for your servant is listening. If we are willing to do so, Christ will speak deeply to our hearts and guide our lives as he did Samuel, invite us to come, see and discover the depth of his love as St Peter and the Apostles did, and to be filled with noble courage and compassion in preaching and living the Gospel as St Paul did, knowing that it will also mean being rejected and scorned at times for doing so.
- The question remains: do we wish to listen to the many things the Lord wishes to reveal to us?
During these Winter months when we still see more and more visitors, I invite you to please consider assisting our new shrine church by signing up not only to attend Mass but also to offer some of your time in a volunteer position to assure the Masses we have scheduled can take place. These volunteer positions are necessary for Mass to occur in this time to be in accord with the guidelines set forward by the Diocese of Calgary for the celebration of the Holy Mass during Phase 2 of the reopening of our province in the midst of this pandemic. All volunteers are guaranteed a chance to attend the Holy Mass they sign up for.
It will only take a small amount of your day to volunteer in this capacity, for example, helping to clean the church after Mass only takes about 15 minutes. But more than volunteering it is a way to offer an act of charity and service to Our Lord and His Holy Mother in assuring we can offer the Eucharist for the Glory of God and the spiritual nourishment of His People.
I invite you to take time today to make a Spiritual Communion, using the following formula or one of your own choosing:
My Jesus,
I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart.
I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You.
Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen."
St. Alphonsus di Liguori
In Jesus through Mary, Fr. Nathan
Our LogoAs a Marian parish, we entrust ourselves to her maternal protection.
Our Lady of the Rockies, Pray for us. |
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Our SchoolOur Lady of the Snows
Catholic Academy Phone: 403-609-3699 Address: 3100A Stewart Creek Drive Canmore, AB T1W 3M6 Website: www.ourladyofthesnows.ca/ |