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For Mass times and dates, and to register to attend, please click here.
To register for a guided tour, please click here. In the Town of Canmore, the Mandatory Mask Bylaw will take effect on Friday, August 7, 2020. You will be required to wear a mask upon entering indoor public premises including the Shrine Church 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. For more information on this bylaw please visit this link. 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 Tue-Thur 9:00am-3:30pm and Friday from 9:00am-1:00pm. 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 at the following times: Tuesday-Thursday 9:00am-11:30am Friday 9:30am-12:30pm 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. |
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 Confessions will take place on Tuesday Evenings from 7:00 -7:45 pm and by appointment. Please contact Fr. Nathan at frnsiray@gmail.com to arrange a time. 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 the 25th Sunday of OT, Year A (2020): Mt 20:1-16
[1] Scott Hahn & Curtis Mitch, The Gospel of Matthew, Ignatius Study Bible, Pg. 52.
During these Fall 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 the 25th Sunday of OT, Year A (2020): Mt 20:1-16
- Being the eldest in a family of 4 brothers, it was not uncommon for me to be the first to engage in a task or chore to make sure it got done promptly and properly. Yet how often would my brothers devise ways to disappear for an unexpected bathroom break just when the dishes needed to be washed, showing up just in time to put the last few away, and still they received ice cream with the family movie, and the same amount I was given I might add. The sheer injustice of the matter has left deep scars upon me to this very day…
- How often do we lament and say it is not fair when we toil long and hard and others seem to do very little yet get the same payout! Thus we might sympathize with the day labourers in today’s Gospel in their just complaints that everyone is getting paid the same for unequal amounts of work. My guess is Jesus intentionally crafted this parable in such a way as to create this reaction in his listeners so that they would pay attention and learn a very important lesson that he would be crucial for the disciples’ understandings of what the Church was to become.
- Like so many parables, they are meant to reveal a deeper truth that is not immediately obvious, since as the Prophet Isaiah said of God “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, for as the heaven are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts..”
- The labourers who started in the early hours of the morning within the vineyard represent the People of Israel. For many centuries they laboured hard and suffered as God’s people, upholding His Law, worshiping Him in the Temple and being a light to the nations.
- The labourers who arrived at the end of the work day represented the Gentile nations that Jesus was calling to help form the new People of God, a Kingdom of every race, culture, and language, who had not laboured for centuries like Israel did as God’s people, but who were now being invited to join and begin their work in the Lord’s vineyard.
- The payment that each labourer received, be those among the Chosen People or those who just entered the Church, would result in the same reward: The gift of eternal life for having fought the good fight of faith and won the race along the narrow path that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. God wishes to be generous in calling all peoples into His Kingdom, including those in our world today who do not know Christ and His Church but whom He will graciously accept to be numbered among his people.
- The message Jesus wanted to covey to the people of His time is they should rejoice they had laboured so long and now were to receive salvation in their Messiah, while also acknowledging that new labourers among the Gentiles would also be welcomed in even if they had only just begun to live as members of God’s people.
- Yet this parable is one that should not simply be relegated to the past as speaking of the beginnings of the Church from both Jews and Gentiles. It continues to be relevant to this day if one was to give it other valid interpretations.
- For example, the great Church Father Origen interpreted this parable as the hours of the workdays representing the stages in life when someone would turn to God. Whether someone was baptized as a tiny infant, entered the Church as a teen or young adult after a profound conversation of life, became Catholic on account of their marriage to their Catholic spouse, or waited until their final days to finally accept baptism and salvation in Christ, all can equally receive the same reward of heaven.
- Once converted, Origen said “people are rescued from idle living to serve Christ in his vineyard, where they harvest much fruit for God before the sun sets of their earthly life. Whether they converted early in life or later, all are rewarded the generous and equal gift of eternal life.”[1]
- May we ask for a generous and understand heart to the ways in which God calls others to labour in his vineyard, avoiding jealousy or resentment for when God calls them, but rejoicing that he has set them on the way to eternal life.
[1] Scott Hahn & Curtis Mitch, The Gospel of Matthew, Ignatius Study Bible, Pg. 52.
During these Fall 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
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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/ |