Job Title: Coordinator of Young Adult Ministry & Faith Formation Job Type: Full-time at 37.5 hours per week Location: 151 Laurier Ave. East, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N8 Starting Salary: $45,000 + Benefits Start Date: October 2021 Closing Date: Open until filled
St. Joseph’s Parish, an inclusive and vibrant Roman Catholic faith community, is hiring a Coordinator of Young Adult Ministry & Faith Formation to join our staff team. Established by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1856, it is the Parish’s mission to reach out to the most marginalized in our broader community in the spirit of the Church’s teachings on the Preferential Option for the Poor and to sustain a parish that is open and welcoming to all. Located adjacent to the University of Ottawa, student outreach and offering young Catholics a positive faith community are central aspects of our pastoral work. Continue reading Pastoral Employment Opportunity→
Exploring community and relationships, Fr. Jim offers the homily for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time. In it, he shares:
“Every morning as I pray, I give thanks for the people whose love and friendship have brought the best out of me; with gratitude and a sense of wonder I give thanks for those wonderful people. Yet as I ponder the different stages of my life, I can recall times when my fear, confusion, lack of maturity, and weaknesses closed my heart to the ideal and vision God offers to humankind. In the midst of our struggles and difficulties, it is good to be reminded that from the beginning of creation, God intended for us to live in community and be in life-giving relationship with each other and all of creation.” Continue reading Fr. Jim’s reflection and a parish update on the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time→
Joe Gunn’s reflection on the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time is an invitation for our parish to reflect on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Joe shares:
“I think we all need to recognize what should be obvious. In the first place, this is not about us. It’s all about the children. It’s all about the systems that continue to oppress Indigenous peoples today…This week, the Gospel invites us to recognize that God didn’t arrive in the so-called New World the moment Columbus landed. Let’s use this week to reflect on how we can be more spiritually attentive to the authenticity, the beauty and the truth of the actions and beliefs of others, especially of Indigenous peoples. ” Continue reading Joe Gunn’s Reflection for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and a Parish Update→
Joan O’Connell offers a reflection for this weekend in the Season of Creation. Joan shares:
“Children and young people are leading the way in the fight against climate change. Is the Gospel telling us that when we welcome these children, we are welcoming Jesus and his Father who sent him? Might this be God’s way of telling us that their wisdom can direct us towards a better, sustainable future? Dominant society has not listened to wisdom voices and in fact has often disparaged them – indigenous peoples, women, young people, marginalized people, the poor. Jesus directs us to the children telling us that that is where God resides. If we really want to hear his voice, we should intentionally listen to theirs rather than just give them the usual lip service by calling them our future yet again.” Continue reading Joan O’Connell’s Reflection and a Parish Update for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time→
In her reflection for the Season of Creation, Eleanor Rabnett shares:
“It has been twenty years since the Twin Towers were attacked and collapsed. In the days that followed many of the helpers were there because the Lord had opened their hearts just as Isaiah speaks of – they went into rescue and save those when both the 1st and the 2nd tower were attacked and then crumbled. This past Wednesday – they announced that they have identified the remains of two of those people who responded to hope. Today we are being asked to follow their lead with the cascading sufferings of today’s world from war, from the warming and thawing of our polar areas, flooding and drought, and raging wildfires that are devastating every corner of our life and the life of our planet. We are being called to healing and rebuilding – of our homes and our lives, our lands and our oceans and the very air and atmosphere that nourishes and protects us all. Healing, rebuilding is the result and power of love.” Continue reading Eleanor Rabnett’s Reflection and a Parish Update on the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time→
In this weekend’s reflection, our Pastor, Fr. Jim Bleackley OMI shares:
“When we hear today’s Gospel story, we are to look into the mirror of the Word and allow it to reveal the authenticity, or not, of our own goodness. If we welcome the truth, we see God’s word has the power to transform us from within, where all goodness and holiness begins. Believers are then responsible for translating their inner goodness into good deeds and good words that serve the needs of others.
Each time the community gathers to encounter Christ and one another in the Eucharist, their commitment to truth and goodness is renewed. As we hear the words “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord and one another,” it becomes our responsibility to mirror to the world all that we have experienced. Loved, we are to love; forgiven, we are to forgive; fed, we are to feed; clothed with grace and security, we are to clothe and shelter the needy. To do otherwise is to distort the one whose image we are to reflect.” Continue reading Fr. Jim’s Reflection, Liturgical Resources and a Parish Update on the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time→
Mark McCormick offers the reflection this weekend. In it, he shares: “We are called to be servants of one another, modelled on our service to Christ. In our modern age, we are mostly used to serving ourselves or being served. We try hard and we work hard to support our households and we do this using the gifts and the talents God has given us. Self-serve is the default option in the 21st century — whether at the grocery store or the gas station. Our independence is prized when we have attained it. Its loss is one of the greatest tragedies we can imagine in this modern age. This ethic of autonomy and self-service has brought us to a position where we see ourselves as sole architects in charge of our human journey. We tend to place ourselves at the centre, rather than placing God at the centre. In doing so, we risk losing our humility…The readings today encourage us to fundamentally reconsider our position in relation to God and to one another.” Continue reading Mark McCormick’s Reflection, Liturgical Resources and a Parish Update on the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time→
In his reflection on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, Fr. Jim shares: “We are invited to ponder the mystery of Christ’s resurrection through the experience of Mary. Today, we celebrate Mary’s assumption as a victory over death; a shining example for all who hear God’s Word and believe in the divine promises. The local traditions of the Assumption of Mary became an official teaching of the Catholic Church on November 1st, 1950. Pope Pius XII solemnly stated: ‘The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.’ The significance of the Church’s declaration of the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary in 1950 was not lost on a world exhausted by world war, and the death of over 50 million human beings. At a moment in history, when the value of human life had been so subjected to mindless brutality and destruction, Mary — an obscure first century Palestinian woman–is held up as the epitope of human existence and purpose…” Continue reading Fr. Jim Bleackley’s Reflection & a Parish Update on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary→
Eleanor Rabnett offers the reflection for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time and shares: “We are invited to taste and see that the Lord is good — not in a manner of trying out a new type of food, but rather allowing the fullness of God in the Eucharist to become a part of us…Gerald Darring tells us that Jesus is talking “about not just feeding but also becoming food when he says, ‘the bread I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ Darring continues: ‘we are to sacrifice ourselves, as Jesus on the cross and in the Eucharist, for the sake of the poor ones… The Eucharist challenges us to become their food, so that they may complete the journey to the mountain of God.’
St. John Chrysostom preached and wrote about the transformation that takes place when we receive the Eucharist: he said, “’I receive him to become him, to be Eucharist for others.'”
