June, 2014 Please Pass this on to a friend

Annunciation of the Lord Parish CWL Newsletter

Dear Sisters in the League,

Here we are at the end of another year! I am so proud to be a member of this council. You women are amazing! Let me recap a few of the highlights since our last newsletter as we have gone forth to serve the Lord.

We started this year off by practicing the Corporal Work of Mercy – ‘Burying the dead’. I include Joan Lariviere in our remembrance of our deceased sisters, followed by Ruth Rance, Gabrielle Shane, Joyce Cook, Sylvia MacLeod, and Lucille Dufour. We remember Jim Dunne, Deacon Ed Webster and Serge Dufour, spouses of our sisters, Mary Dunne, Marjorie Webster and Lucille Dufour. We partici-pated in prayer services, attended funerals and hosted receptions. It requires the assistance of be-tween 25 and 40 women to put a reception togeth-er. These figures include sandwich and sweet mak-ers, those who prepare fruit and vegetables, and those who do the set-up, serving and clean-up at the reception itself and as well as those who take part in the Honour Guard, where applicable, keep-ing in mind that some of these ladies do more than one service. Thank you all for your generosity when the call goes out.

In the middle of all this we hosted a grand recep-tion for Fr. Matthew Keshwah at St. Theresa’s fol-lowing his first Mass as a priest. I offer a special thank you to Michele Hundertmark for co-ordinating this event and making it seem so effort-less. In all 25 participated in this event that served 200 people. Michele’s chocolate fountain was a hit.

In response to the call to ‘Clothe the Naked’, you provided with great eagerness for the women who are served by St. Joe’s Women’s Centre. (See pic-tures of my van and the youth who helped me load it the evening before convention.)

We recognized the human dignity of all people everywhere when we served lunch at High Hori-zons in April. Each Tuesday, from September to June, volunteers provide a day of activities, such as crafts and choir, to those who have physical and

mental challenges. Lunch is served by a different group each week. A week after our turn, they cele-brated their 40th anniversary of service: Quite an accomplishment!

We recognized the sanctity of life with our Diaper Drive, thanks to Monica DeRomer, and our Anti-Pornography Postcard Campaign, thanks to There-sa Steller. Both events encouraged parish participa-tion as will the Baby Bottle Drive in the fall.

Our Confirmation Retreat lunch was a great suc-cess. The young people gobbled up Michele’s Mac-aroni and Cheese and Rice Krispie Squares. We supported these young people in their faith by serv-ing this meal and in our gift of a Catechism of the Catholic Church. We also supported our first com-municants with a gift of a rosary and prayer card of St John Paul II and St. John XXIII.

Convention, League Development Day, Advent Retreat, World Day of Prayer and the Feast of Our lady of Good Counsel are all opportunities to come together with our sisters across the city to pray and grow in faith. I urge you to take advantage of these opportunities in the coming year.

And lastly, there are the social events – the Christ-mas Dinner and our Strawberry Social.

Now I present you with some homework over the summer months: a course of study to prepare for the upcoming Synod on the Family in October. I made reference to this at our last general meeting. Let us review what our faith teaches about family life, and why she teaches what she does. We will be touching on all the ‘core issues of life’, a phrase used by Bishop Riesbeck. Fr. Dennis will be eager to answer any questions you may have. We will call this, “Ask the Padre”. Let us see Jesus in eve-ryone we encounter.

May God bless you and keep you strong in your faith.

Janet Warren, President

Strawberry Social

By Elizabeth Gauthier

Wow! Wow! What an event our gracious CWL hosted Saturday June 7th – strawberries, spring hats, fascinators, white gloves, and dresses in strik-ing colors and fashion. Our women looked as if they were ready for the New York runway. There were garden flowers adorning the tables, silver tea services, and silver trays, honourable women pour-ing tea, music, china tea cups, whipped cream, chocolate, hospitality and all of this to create a per-fect afternoon for our CWL and parish community.

Father Dennis, Father Yves, special guests, grand-daughters, husbands – their presence added to our gentle afternoon. We would be remiss if we did not mention a table of women in various shades of pink. Another Wow!

Many volunteers were so generous of their time in creating the magic that happens for an event. We are so-o-o-o grateful. We all know how tired our feet get; but we have fun as well in the time spent working together.

Hope each of you enjoyed our new addition to our afternoon. Thanks to Cheryl Bradley, the strawber-ry themed silent auction was a huge success.

Thanks everyone.

Mike and Maura Strivens enjoying the afternoon at the Strawberry Social.

Edith Mockler takes a turn pouring tea

Pat Lepine takes a turn pouring tea

Linda Huard having fun at the social

Spiritual Advisor’s Corner Dear friends in the League, As I approach the end of my first year at Annunciation of the Lord, I am filled with gratitude to be part of such a vibrant and wonderful council as the one found here in our parish. The warmer weather has finally arrived, the long winter months almost forgotten and we all look for-ward to times of summer leisure and rest. Our CWL executive has prepared an excellent compilation of summer spiritual reading in anticipation of this fall’s extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family. The synod will be held at the Vatican from Oc-tober 5th to the 19th. Here below is how one Catholic periodical summarized one principle issue at hand for this fall’s synod where the theme will be: “The pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization” Let’s pray along with Pope Francis for the success this fall’s synod on the family. He said back in February of this year: “Indeed, in our day the Church is called to proclaim the Gospel by confronting the new and urgent pastoral needs facing the family.”

“[This] important meeting will involve not only bishops and priests, but also consecrated men and wom-en, “and lay faithful of the particular Churches of the entire world.” Because the Synod is dedicated to the topic of marriage and family, the Holy Father wrote to families, “I ask you, therefore, to pray in-tensely to the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit may illumine the Synodal Fathers and guide them in their important task.” -Letter dated February 2, 2014, and published by Vatican News on February 25

I want to wish all members of our council a summer filled with delight, good cheer, family fun and the many blessings of the Lord. Sincerely yours in Christ, Fr. Dennis Hayes

Initial reviews of responses from around the world on questionnaires about church teaching on the family in advance of this fall's extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family show that the teaching is misunderstood, said a cardinal who will run one the synod's sessions. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines, told Catholic News Service he found the responses "shocking, if I am allowed to use that word." "Shocking because almost in all parts of the world, the questionnaires indicated that the teaching of the church regarding family life is not clearly understood by people, and the language by which the church proposes the teaching seems to be a language not accessi-ble to people," Cardinal Tagle said in an interview May 16 at The Catholic University of America. "So this is my hope, not for change -- how can you change the biblical teachings? But maybe a real pastoral and evangelical concern for the church: How do we present the good news of the family to this generation, with its limitations, with its greatness, with its unique experiences?” - National Catholic Reporter May 22, 2014

PILGRIMAGE TO CAP DE LA MADELEINE AND

QUEBEC’S HOLY DOOR

By Donna Verner.

We were 36 pilgrims plus Fr. Dennis Hayes, CC, our spir-itual Advisor and Jose Manuel Cerrud, our tour guide. The following are some reflections on our pilgrimage.

A Spiritual Journey: How many spiritual "kisses" did we re-ceive on our 3-day pilgrimage? - the perfect weather, the safe travel, the

friendly companions, the wonderful videos on the bus, the cordial welcomes, the delicious meals, the

shared stories, the laughter, the praying, Lectio Divinio ("wake up sweet buttercups"), meeting with CCO people, and marvellous guides; the feast days that we celebrated – the Visitation on the day we passed through the Holy Door of Notre Dame de Quebec, and the Ascension on Sunday, June 1st, all this within the novena of the Holy Spirit, as we prepare for the coming celebration of Pentecost. We prayed the rosary, had the opportunity for Con-fession, daily mass, Stations of the Cross, venerat-ed relics of many saints, especially Canadian mar-tyrs, and St. Peregrine, patron of cancer patients.

We experienced first-hand the crisis of our church-es in Quebec and sensed the echo of "rebuild my church" that St. Francis heard.

My favourite part? It’s a tossup between the im-promptu adoration service at St. Peregrine’s Shrine, and Father Dennis's home spun stories that he shared with us. It was wonderful to get to know better so many from our flock. Someone from an-other parish was heard to say how wonderful it must be to belong to such a vibrant, caring, hospi-table, prayerful parish as AOTL Parish! I have to agree.

Reflections on Our Lady of the Cape By Joan Wills

What a wonderful experience it was to travel to-gether to learn more about Mary, the Mother of Jesus and his Saints. There were so many things I did not know about the first of the Marian Shrines in Canada. I did not know that in 1694 a Confrater-nity of the Holy Rosary was founded at the Cape and that through these prayers a new parish was established in 1714. From 1729 to 1844 there were no resident priests at the Cape and gradually people abandoned their practice of attending church. Amazingly it was not until 1867 on the eve of the Feast of the Ascension, Fr. Désilets saw a pig chewing on a rosary enter the church! Such a sight renewed his devotion to the Rosary and the parish-ioners returned. Now a larger church was required and as The Cape does not have rocks, it was decided to bring rocks from the South shore over the ice in the winter of 1879, however, the river did not freeze that winter. Again rosaries were offered to Mary which result-ed in the miracle of an ice bridge to enable the transportation of stones over the open waters. In

1881, the new church was dedicated to the venera-tion of Our Lady and the statue of Mary above the main altar opened its eyes in the presence of Fr. Désilets, Blessed Fréderic and a handicapped pa-rishioner! Kneeling at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Cape one is transported to a world of peace before Mary who welcomes us with open arms. The trip was an experience of a lifetime for me and one that I will always remember because I have come to know Mary better and I shared the experience with my brothers and sisters.

Fron Top Left: Jane Gratton on pilgrimage; group picture from the pilgrimage, CWL members helping at High Horizons; Newly ordained Fr. Matthew Keshwah with members of Annunciation CWL who helped with a reception celebrating his first mass; Cheryl Bradley and Sharen Reynart enjoying the lovely weather on the CWL sponsored pilgrimage

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The Ottawa Diocesan Council of the

Catholic Women’s League of Canada

By Edith Mockler, Life Member

The 91st Annual Convention of the Ottawa Dioce-san Council was hosted by St. Philip’s Council in Richmond. Their hospitality and their meals were exceptional.

The theme of the Convention, "We Have Seen the Lord" flowed through the day's events, the prayers, the reports and the speakers. Each Parish Council President reported her Council’s experience seeing

the Lord in what they accomplished throughout the year. There were two speakers. One showed a vid-eo and then talked of the good work done by Cath-olic Missions in Canada. The other told us about the assistance given to women and families at St. Joe’s Women’s Centre and about their needs. This place was the recipient of the clothing that we con-tributed in April. Each Council’s contribution, whether it was baby things, toiletries or clothing, matched ours with the result that Marsha Wilson, the Speaker and Executive Director of the Centre was overwhelmed with the quantity of items she would be taking back. Needless to say, she was most grateful.

The last invocation in the closing prayer of the business sessions was, “We have seen the Lord … seen Him in our CWL sisters”. How true that is!

Top Left:Members of our council, with Fr. Dennis at Convention Top Right: Youth load our donation of gently loved clothing , for St. Joe’s Women centre From L-R: Sharen Reynart, Edith Mock-ler, Sonya Laroque and Lynn Leduc rep-resent Annunciation of the Lord at the Diocesan Convention

2014 Service Pins

New Members

Darlene Tier

Monica Chagoya

Elaine Simpson

Margharita Buscema

25 Years

Mary Ajersch

Lea Attrux

Theresa Matteau-Sit

Catherine Peel

Sheila Whalley

MAPLE LEAF PIN Michele Hundertmark

10 Years

Lynn Leduc

Katherine LeLievre

Genevieve Provick

Nancy Richardson

Helen Roberts

Aline Sirois

Tess Sturgeon

Louise Wood

50 Years

Clara Trainor

Greetings from Consuelo To all my sisters from CWL, I hope all is going well for you. I'm busy as usual with CWL and choir at the Corpus Christie parish. I think of you often, especially at our CWL functions. You are all in my prayers. God Bless, Consuelo Kelly

ONGOING ACTIVITIES

Our Prayer Shawl Ministry meets the

2nd Thursday of each month in the

Parish Hall from 1- 3 pm.

Victoria Quilts meets the 3rd Thursday of each month in the

Parish Hall from 1 - 4 pm.

ANNUNCIATION OF THE LORD

PARISH 2414 Ogilvie Road,

Gloucester, ON K1J 7N5

Phone (613) 745-7774

Fax (613) 745-7877

E-mail: parish@annunciation-ottawa.com

CWL LINKS

www.cwl.ca click on media to get the latest newsletter and

“The League” magazine

www.cwl.on.ca for all the news from our provincial CWL www.ottawa.cwl.on.ca check out the new Ottawa Archdiocesan website

YOUR CWL EXECUTIVE FOR 2013-2014

Interim President - Janet Warren - 749-7653

jpwarren@rogers.com Secretary - Dawn Roach

jeanwilfrid@sympatico.ca

Treasurer - Holly Huard holly.huard@ic.gc.ca

VP, Organization - Sharen Reynaert sharen4@rogers.com

Spiritual Development - Terry Thibert terryt3@rogers.com

Education and Health - Bonnie Lalonde

denisbonnie.lalonde@sympatico.ca Communications - Danielle Breffitt

sosickofbeingtired@hotmail.com Community Life - Monica de Römer

monica.deromer@ottawa.ca

Resolutions and Legislation –Vacant

Christian Family Life - Theresa Steller thestellers@ncf.ca

Council Coordinator - Linda Huard

jakal@rogers.com Spiritual Advisor – Vacant

Our CWL council is aiming to create a cookbook to be put out in the fall. If you have a favourite recipe, or a recipe that everyone is always asking for, now is your chance to share it! Submit recipes to Darlene Tier at darlene.tier@gmail.com

Calling all Cooks! CWL Cookbook needs you!