The Sheepcat

Happy Anniversary, Holy Family!

Today our parish celebrated the tenth anniversary of the dedication of Holy Family Church, which was rebuilt after a 1997 fire destroyed the original building.

The grill in front of the tabernacle bears the inscription "Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur," which comes from Isaiah 56:7. "My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples." It really is a house of prayer, being open to the public daily from early morning until 9 p.m. It's such a blessing to be able to walk two blocks from our apartment and spend a few minutes kneeling before our Lord in the tabernacle.

Holy Family Church will always be special to us as the place of our wedding and where one of us was received into the Catholic Church. We owe a great debt to the Fathers of the Oratory for all they do in the service of the Lord.

"I was glad when they said unto me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.'"

The Holy Family, Icon and Model of Every Human Family

Mrs Sheepcat and I wish you a happy Feast of the Holy Family.

This day is extra-special to us because our parish is Holy Family Church, and we applied the theme to our wedding. After we signed the register, we consecrated our marriage to the Holy Family with the following prayer and left the bridal bouquet for Our Lady at the icon.

Photo by Greg Schilhab.

O Jesus, our most loving Redeemer, who having come to enlighten the world with Thy teaching and example, didst will to pass the greater part of Thy life in humility and subjection to Mary and Joseph in the poor home of Nazareth, thus sanctifying the Family that was to be an example for all Christian families, graciously receive our family as it dedicates and consecrates itself to Thee this day.

Do Thou protect us, guard us and establish amongst us Thy holy fear, true peace and concord in Christian love: in order that by living according to the divine pattern of Thy family we may be able,
all of us without exception, to attain to eternal happiness.

Mary, dear Mother of Jesus and Mother of us, by thy kindly intercession make this our humble offering acceptable in the sight of Jesus, and obtain for us His graces and blessings.

O Saint Joseph, most holy Guardian of Jesus and Mary, help us by thy prayers in all our spiritual and temporal needs; that so we may be enabled to praise our divine Savior Jesus, together with Mary and thee, for all eternity.

(Recite the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be 3 times.)

Amen.

Through prayer cards based on this image and quotation, we asked our guests to pray for us. We ask for your prayers and assure you of ours.

The Holy Family is the beginning of countless other holy families.

The history of mankind, the history of salvation, passes by way of the family. The family is placed at the center of the great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and all that is opposed to love. To the family is entrusted the task of striving to unleash the forces of good, the source of which is found in Christ ... so that their family will be strong with the strength of God.

I speak to all people of our day, so that they will come to appreciate the grandeur of marriage, family and life; so that they will come to appreciate the great danger which follows when these realities are not respected, or when the supreme values which lie at the foundation of the family and of human dignity are disregarded.

May the Holy Family, icon and model of every human family, help each family unit to grow in understanding of its particular mission in society and the Church. May Mary and Joseph accompany us all with their constant protection.

With these sentiments I bless every family in the name of the Most Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Pope John Paul II
from Letter to Families, 1994

Our Wedding Day

We're married, thanks be to God!

What a difference from the despair I knew when my parents prayed for me to abandon a gay lifestyle. Those days seem like a lifetime ago or another world.

Meanwhile, the time since I proposed to Theresa has flown by.

We had a beautiful nuptial Mass at Holy Family Church at 11:15 a.m. on Saturday, July 18. Here I accept my wedding band from my beautiful bride.

We shed some happy tears as we walked back down the aisle as husband and wife.
Photos by Greg Schilhab.

We have been tremendously blessed by the generosity of our friends and family. Especially we are grateful for everyone's prayers for us.

Welcome, visitors from Deborah Gyapong.

Blessed Apparition of Saint Michael Day

Update: Welcome, readers from Catholic and Enjoying It! and Post-Darwinist and (a new one to me) Iliocentrism. Don't miss our engagement story--pretty remarkable for a guy who used to want to marry his boyfriend.

A guest post by Miss (for now) Blanche, M.I.

Four years ago this Sunday, May 10, The Sheepcat got started here with his new Web adventure. Since then he has experienced some rather significant changes.

Along the way he has continued to enrich the lives of his numerous readers, both local and international. I should know, because when he introduced himself online, I was able to learn plenty of good things about The Sheepcat before I replied. Subsequently I have learned countless more good things about The Sheepcat (not least that he's even better-looking in person, girls!), and I very much look forward to being his wife.

For as long as I've known The Sheepcat, we have shared a devotion to Saint Michael, for whose intercession we pray when passing by psychic shops. We know of two that closed on The Sheepcat's watch, one that closed on mine, and two more since we began dating and praying together daily – a total of five psychic shops closed to date following our prayers to the Prince of the Heavenly Host. In thanksgiving to God we are having a Mass offered at 5:30 this afternoon at Holy Family Church.

While we chose this date for its liturgical significance, we honour Saint Michael every day. We invoke him as our protector in spiritual battle and as the patron of our city.

This date also comes after The Sheepcat recorded 50,000 page views.

We would like readers to know that this blog is a gift to the Church, and that we pray for your intentions daily. On a personal note, May 8 happens to be the six-month anniversary of the pub night after he and I had The Conversation. We have been so blessed to experience a courtship within a community fostered by the Oratorian Fathers.

If you booked your spot for tonight's Sheepfold dinner, get ready for a great meal and some beautiful fellowship at our new headquarters. If you aren't joining us tonight, please save the date to celebrate the patron saint of The Sheepcat, Cardinal Cooke, with dessert on October 6, 2009. Again, please respond through the blog e-mail. And, whether or not we can meet in person, please use the comments section below for your shout-outs. Happy Anniversary, Sheepcat!

Vespers Visitor

Prayers, please, for a friend of mine who has said he'll come to Vespers at Holy Family a week from tomorrow. Though it's the music that's drawing him, I'm hoping he will also recognize in the Eucharist something he cannot explain.

Solemnity of the Dedication of Holy Family Church

Toronto Catholic Blog has a fine profile of the Church of the Holy Family, where today we celebrated the solemnity of the anniversary of the consecration and dedication of the new building in 2001. At Mass early this morning we were reminded that, while it's something of a cliché that a church is more than bricks and mortar, when the previous building burned down, the community really felt the loss. The new building is a splendid one; I'm thankful to call it my church home.

How Not to Put Inclusive Language in the Creed

Most of the kids did pretty well in the quiz I gave my Confirmation class today. There was one pretty funny error, though, in the section where they had to fill in the blanks with words missing from the Nicene Creed. One boy wrote,

For us men and for our   women    ,
he came down from     heaven      .

Serving at the Traditional Latin Mass

In the spring I began serving two days a week at the Mass at Holy Family Parish. Since the Traditional Latin Mass started in September, I've been helping to set up for Mass and getting trained to serve.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to serve at the traditional Mass for the first time. I'm nervous--probably not in a bad way, but nervous nonetheless. Please pray for me.

* * *

Update (21 November): I was very, very nervous and fumbled a few of the rubrics, but it went okay. Better than okay, actually: it was the Mass, which is an awesome event no matter what the server does.

I heard that someone I know who has also been serving at the Traditional Latin Mass wanted to know if anything he got wrong could invalidate the Mass, and he was relieved to be told no. Validity is the priest's responsibility, and we servers are there just to help. Whew!

Next time will be easier, I'm sure. And the time after that, and so on. That's the beauty of a set liturgy, that over time it becomes familiar to the point where we no longer need to concentrate consciously on what is supposed to happen next, and the ritual wafts us to a higher place. This transcendence suggests to me a reading of Ephesians 3 that hadn't occurred to me before. Imagine St Paul praying "that you, being rooted and grounded in love [that is, in the Eucharist!], may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled will all the fullness of God" (3:17b-19). Amazing, eh?

It's also good, it was suggested to me, that the complexity of the Traditional Latin Mass reminds us servers we really can't manage it own our own; with the simpler rubrics of the Novus Ordo, it's perhaps easier to fall into a sense of self-sufficiency instead of remembering that everything good we accomplish is achieved through God's grace.

It's been a blessed day. Thank you for your prayers.