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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary has decreed all weekday and weekend Masses are cancelled for an unspecified period of time. For more information please click here
Fr Nathan will privately celebrate the Holy Mass daily for requested Mass intentions and for the well being of our parish, our local community and all impacted by this pandemic. To financially support our parish operations and building fund in the absence of the regular weekend collections, 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 Tuesday-Friday 9:00am to Noon. Click here for the current parish financials. Please scroll down this home page for spiritual reflections and homilies by Fr. Nathan. May Our Lady of the Rockies intercede for us all and bring an end to this pandemic. I remain yours in Jesus through Mary, Fr. Nathan Siray SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION The regular confessions times have been cancelled and the Sacrament of Reconciliation will be available with Fr. Nathan by appointment. Please contact him at frnsiray@gmail.com to arrange a time to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 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, please do not hesitate to do so! |
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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 for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, 2020
For a PDF version of the below homily, please click here
The Cathedral of Norte Dame in Paris was never a place I expected to be within to celebrate the solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord! Prior to beginning my month long pilgrimage on el Camino de Santiago della Compostella in Spain, I was able to spend a day in Paris with my brother and a good friend before an overnight train to Lourdes and then to the base of the Pyrenees mountains to begin the 800km trek to pray before the relics of St. James the Apostle.
Now it just so happened we would be landing in Paris on Thursday May 1st which that year was the solemnity of the Ascension as they continue to celebrate the Lord’s Ascension on Thursday in France as opposed to moving it to the following Sunday as we do in Canada.
A few weeks prior to flying to Paris I learned that if our flight was not delayed and we caught the right train into Paris, than we could make the 11am Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral. We arrived there with 10 minutes to spare!
Steeping into that majestic church, now tragically gutted by its recent fire, was among the most awe-inspiring moments of my life. As you have all learned I am rather inclined to all things historical and so there I was standing in a church that has stood witness to so many of the Church’s joys and trials through the ages.
Notre Dame’s stain glass windows were part of Abbot Suger’s desire to make a church building an embodiment of the heavens above. Those renowned windows are much more than just pictorial ways to teach illiterate people the stories of the bible. These walls of glass were meant to flood the cold stone building with light, to help you experience what heaven will be like, as your eyes are drawn to look upwards to the vaulted ceilings above that seem to ascend into eternity.
It was within these walls the kings were crowned, where nobility and peasants came together to pray as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered, and where during the French Revolution, the new atheistic government built a papier-mâché mountain above the high altar to begin their cult to Divine Reason, though that mountain crumbled long ago and once again the altar of the Lord stands, again tragically damaged by the fire and unable to be used for the Holy Mass, but still awaiting our prayers to arise to God.
It was here that I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the solemn hymns that filled the cathedral, of the incense that rose high into that endless ceiling and where people from every nation and tongue prayed together to honour the Lord’s Ascension to His Heavenly Father.
It was a moment where I knew my soul had ascended with him, that Christ was very alive and present, and in love came down to us from his throne at the right hand of the Father to be with be his people, most profoundly in the Holy Eucharist we would receive to renew our communion with him.
I have since wondered if what I experienced was anything like what the Apostles experienced when they witnessed him ascend into heaven, knowing that he would no longer walk with them, but that he would be with them always in the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus would send us them the Advocate, He who guides and sustains the Church in all things and assures that Christ will always be among us, most especially in his Holy Sacraments.
But once Mass had come to an end and we made a quick tour through the rest of the Cathedral, we were back on the streets of Paris, which being May 1st meant it was a holiday and I am pretty sure the entire city was out and about. We were back in world, that 1 hour celebration that felt like I had ascended into heaven had now passed, it was time to once again be in the world, but as Christ commanded us, not of the world.
Jesus told the Apostles it was not yet time for them to ascend with him to reign with him forever in heaven. It was better, he told them at the Last Supper, that he departed from this world so that the Holy Spirit would come among them. It was now time for them to proclaim the Gospel, to call the entire world to repentance and conversion for the forgiveness of sins and incorporation into Christ’s Mystical Body, the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
They were to be in the world, but not of the world; to be engaged in all human activities to sanctify them, to restore them to their proper place of glorying God and saving countless souls from the spiritual sickness that Pope Francis time and again warns us of: the spirit of worldliness, that which turns us in on ourselves and prevents us from being the saints we are called to be.
If we truly desire to ascend with him, then we must seek that which is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. If you fear that you cannot be a disciple, then call on the Holy Spirit, rekindle your friendship with Him and ask Him to pour forth His mighty love upon you as we await his arrival on Pentecost.
Today is Day 3 of the Pentecost Novena. There are different version of this novena that you can find with a quick Google search but here is one suggested novena you can follow: www.praymorenovenas.com/novena-to-the-holy-spirit
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 for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, 2020
For a PDF version of the below homily, please click here
The Cathedral of Norte Dame in Paris was never a place I expected to be within to celebrate the solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord! Prior to beginning my month long pilgrimage on el Camino de Santiago della Compostella in Spain, I was able to spend a day in Paris with my brother and a good friend before an overnight train to Lourdes and then to the base of the Pyrenees mountains to begin the 800km trek to pray before the relics of St. James the Apostle.
Now it just so happened we would be landing in Paris on Thursday May 1st which that year was the solemnity of the Ascension as they continue to celebrate the Lord’s Ascension on Thursday in France as opposed to moving it to the following Sunday as we do in Canada.
A few weeks prior to flying to Paris I learned that if our flight was not delayed and we caught the right train into Paris, than we could make the 11am Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral. We arrived there with 10 minutes to spare!
Steeping into that majestic church, now tragically gutted by its recent fire, was among the most awe-inspiring moments of my life. As you have all learned I am rather inclined to all things historical and so there I was standing in a church that has stood witness to so many of the Church’s joys and trials through the ages.
Notre Dame’s stain glass windows were part of Abbot Suger’s desire to make a church building an embodiment of the heavens above. Those renowned windows are much more than just pictorial ways to teach illiterate people the stories of the bible. These walls of glass were meant to flood the cold stone building with light, to help you experience what heaven will be like, as your eyes are drawn to look upwards to the vaulted ceilings above that seem to ascend into eternity.
It was within these walls the kings were crowned, where nobility and peasants came together to pray as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered, and where during the French Revolution, the new atheistic government built a papier-mâché mountain above the high altar to begin their cult to Divine Reason, though that mountain crumbled long ago and once again the altar of the Lord stands, again tragically damaged by the fire and unable to be used for the Holy Mass, but still awaiting our prayers to arise to God.
It was here that I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the solemn hymns that filled the cathedral, of the incense that rose high into that endless ceiling and where people from every nation and tongue prayed together to honour the Lord’s Ascension to His Heavenly Father.
It was a moment where I knew my soul had ascended with him, that Christ was very alive and present, and in love came down to us from his throne at the right hand of the Father to be with be his people, most profoundly in the Holy Eucharist we would receive to renew our communion with him.
I have since wondered if what I experienced was anything like what the Apostles experienced when they witnessed him ascend into heaven, knowing that he would no longer walk with them, but that he would be with them always in the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus would send us them the Advocate, He who guides and sustains the Church in all things and assures that Christ will always be among us, most especially in his Holy Sacraments.
But once Mass had come to an end and we made a quick tour through the rest of the Cathedral, we were back on the streets of Paris, which being May 1st meant it was a holiday and I am pretty sure the entire city was out and about. We were back in world, that 1 hour celebration that felt like I had ascended into heaven had now passed, it was time to once again be in the world, but as Christ commanded us, not of the world.
Jesus told the Apostles it was not yet time for them to ascend with him to reign with him forever in heaven. It was better, he told them at the Last Supper, that he departed from this world so that the Holy Spirit would come among them. It was now time for them to proclaim the Gospel, to call the entire world to repentance and conversion for the forgiveness of sins and incorporation into Christ’s Mystical Body, the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
They were to be in the world, but not of the world; to be engaged in all human activities to sanctify them, to restore them to their proper place of glorying God and saving countless souls from the spiritual sickness that Pope Francis time and again warns us of: the spirit of worldliness, that which turns us in on ourselves and prevents us from being the saints we are called to be.
If we truly desire to ascend with him, then we must seek that which is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. If you fear that you cannot be a disciple, then call on the Holy Spirit, rekindle your friendship with Him and ask Him to pour forth His mighty love upon you as we await his arrival on Pentecost.
Today is Day 3 of the Pentecost Novena. There are different version of this novena that you can find with a quick Google search but here is one suggested novena you can follow: www.praymorenovenas.com/novena-to-the-holy-spirit
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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