Counting our blessings

On Sunday, at the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ottawa, we celebrated 30 years in our humble church building that sits on the corner of Spencer and Carleton Streets in a residential neighborhood. Today, All Saints Day, is the actual anniversary of our first service.

Barb Reid baked a gluten-free chocolate cake to mark the occasion. Bishop Carl Reid read us a little history of how we purchased the building from the Ottawa Church of God, a group with roots in the West Indies. Bishop Carl noted that our first Bishop, Camino de Catanzaro, had offered this same group the use of the parish hall for their services when he had been rector of St. Barnabas, the Anglican parish where our original members came from.

"There was a happy 'what goes around comes around' scenario in our purchasing the building from them, and in their permitting us to begin worship here before we actually had full ownership," he said.

Before our tragic parish break-up last fall that saw about one third of our people leave, we had been actively looking for another building, since we had been bursting at the seams.

It was a good time for us to count our many blessings and the ways God has cared for us in small and great ways. Our oldest member, who was one of our parish founders, Ursula, cut the cake.

In this month's Annunciator, our parish newsletter, Bishop Carl writes:

"Truthfully, as is consistently realized in all church parishes in all denominations, there have been waxings and wanings of our membership numbers during these 30 years. So too there have been times of peace and times of turmoil, both individually and collectively, which is nothing that Christians should not expect. We should all be terribly concerned if the sailing was always smooth; our Lord tells us that all who faithfully follow Him will be called on, in various times and places, to endure suffering of one form or another, in, as He said, "taking up (our own) crosses." But through it all, He has sustained us in Word and Sacrament, by grace and mercy."

Meanwhile, we forge ahead on The Evangelium Course and truth be known, we're having a lot of fun and a warm time of fellowship as we review the Catholic faith.

Some of our original parish members