908 - 104 Avenue
Dawson Creek, BC, V1G 2H7
Tel: 2507823456
e-mail: nddc@shaw.ca
Office Hours: Mon. to Fri. 8AM-12Noon
908 - 104 Avenue
Dawson Creek, BC, V1G 2H7
Tel: 2507823456
e-mail: nddc@shaw.ca
Office Hours: Mon. to Fri. 8AM-12Noon
UPDATES
PARISH RE-OPENING
Dear Parishioners of Notre Dame,
I would like to thank everyone for being conscientious following the rules set out by the Provincial Health Minister and our Parish.
• Last May 19th, we have re-opened our doors for public worship. Weekend Mass attendance can be booked through phone call (250-782-3456) or email (nddc@shaw.ca) or you can drop by the parish office from 8AM to 12Noon (Monday to Friday), seats (pews) are numbered 1-50 for use, the rest are blocked off with ‘NO ADMITTANCE’ sign.
MASS TIMES ARE:
Saturday - 5PM and 7:30PM
Sunday - 9AM, 11AM and 5PM
• The limit of 50 persons is still in force until further notice. Members of the same household may sit together, but provision should be made for appropriate physical distancing in the pews from everyone else.
• Since the limit on the number of persons who may gather remains in effect, the dispensation from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass continues in Prince George Diocese.
• The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available by appointment only, Tuesday to Friday from 10AM to 11:30AM following physical distancing restrictions.
• Holy water is not available at the church entrance, but hand sanitizer is made available.
• We regularly disinfect commonly touched areas every after Mass. A thorough cleaning of the church is done every Monday and Friday.
• Collection baskets are not passed from hand to hand; baskets are placed at each side of the church.
• The offertory procession is omitted as well as the sign of peace.
• Communicants should maintain the recommended distance from each other as they walk in procession.
• Wearing facial mask (surgical and re-usable-washable) during Mass is permitted. However PPEs (gloves of any kind, face shield, surgical gown) ARE NOT permitted inside the church. Parishioners not comfortable coming to church during this time SHOULD STAY HOME.
• Notre Dame Parish discontinued the livestream of Sunday Mass. Parishioners unable to attend Mass in person can tune in to Sacred Heart Cathedral Facebook Fan Page every Saturday at 6:30PM and Sunday at 10AM.
Please observe proper basic hygiene, e.g., regular handwashing and staying away from the church when experiencing covid 19 symptoms or if you have underlying health conditions that will put you at greater risk.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Fr. Vener Sabacan
Saints who have had to live without the Eucharist - by Meg Hunter-Kilmer (aleteia.org)
These stories will put our momentary fast from the Body and Blood of Christ into perspective.
With dioceses around the world canceling public Masses for weeks to come, many Catholics are already feeling starved for the Eucharist. When the world is fighting a global pandemic, it seems that the Mass would be more necessary than ever. But while public Masses are canceled, the private ones continue and the body of Christ is able to receive the graces from those Masses, especially when we make a spiritual communion.
Still, how can we who depend on the Sacraments survive this crisis when divorced from holy Mass? Well, there are plenty of saints (and millions more Christians) who’ve had similar experiences, months and years of surviving without the Sacraments. Looking to them can strengthen us to persevere.
Though not canonized, thousands and thousands of Japanese Christians lived without priests for nearly 250 years. They baptized their children in secret, passing down the faith in whispered lessons, praying before images of the Madonna and Child that were disguised to look like Buddhist images. In 1858 Japan finally readmitted Christian missionaries, who found 10,000 hidden Christians waiting for them. Imagine being raised with the near certainty that you would never in your life attend Mass, knowing of the Eucharist only because your grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother once went to Mass. It puts social distancing in perspective.
The saints of 19th-century Korea were in a similar situation. After the Gospel was first preached by Servant of God Yi Beok and his companions in 1784, the Church was run entirely by laypeople until 1795. At that point, Bl. James Zhou Wen-Mo arrived and discovered 4,000 Catholics, only one of whom had ever seen a priest. Wen-Mo served as the only priest in all of Korea for six years, until his martyrdom. For the next 36 years, there were again no Masses in Korea until a small group of French priests arrived in 1836—and were killed two years later.
St. Isaac Jogues (1607-1646) may have been prepared for torture and martyrdom when he traveled to North America to evangelize Native Americans. But as a priest, he wouldn’t have expected to be deprived of the Eucharist — until his hands were marred by his captors. At the time, a priest who was missing thumb or forefinger was unable to celebrate the Mass, so from the time of his injury until (having escaped his Mohawk captors) his return to France 17 months later, Fr. Jogues was unable to confess, to celebrate Mass, or even to attend Mass. He was given a special dispensation and permitted to celebrate Mass again, in spite of the state of his hands, and requested permission to return to America after his recovery. He was killed not long after his return, but his killer later repented and was baptized with the name “Isaac Jogues.”
Bl. Victoire Rasoamanarivo (1848-1894) was a Malagasy noblewoman and a convert to Catholicism. A leader in the Church in Madagascar, when the French were expelled from Madagascar in 1883, the departing priests left the care of the Church in her hands, along with Bl. Raphael Rafiringa, a Malagasy religious Brother. For nearly three years, Victoire and Raphael led the 21,000 lay Catholics in Madagascar, bringing them together each Sunday for communal prayer though there were no priests to celebrate Mass. Victoire explained, “I place before my mind the missionaries saying the Mass, and mentally attend all the Masses being said throughout the world.” Three years later, a vibrant community hungry for the Eucharist welcomed their priests back—all of them far more grateful for the Mass than they had been before their three years without it.
St. Mark Ji TianXiang (1834-1900) was an opium addict. Because his priest didn’t understand the nature of addiction, he told TianXiang that he couldn’t be absolved until he had beaten his addiction—which meant that he couldn’t receive communion either. For 30 years, TianXiang continued to practice the faith while being denied the Sacraments. He never did manage to get clean, but he died a martyr and has been canonized a saint not just for his martyrdom but for his decades of attempting to follow Jesus even in the absence of the Sacraments.
Bl. Laurentia Herasymiv (1911-1952), like countless other Catholics in Nazi concentration camps or Soviet gulags, spent the last months of her life without the Sacraments and in the near certainty that she would have no opportunity for viaticum or a final confession. Arrested for refusing to abandon the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church for Orthodoxy, Sr. Laurentia and Bl. Olympia Bida were sent to Siberia, where both died as a result of all they’d suffered at the hands of the communists. As she lay dying, she begged for the Eucharist, calling out in her delirium, “Jesus, I do not want to die without you!” She died, as she had lived for two long years, without the Eucharist, and was fully united to Jesus.
Parish Leadership
Parish Staff
Pastor: Rev. Venerando Sabacan
Secretary: Pauline Bates
Office Volunteer: Yvonne Becotte
STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL
President: Rev. Venerando Sabacan
Chairperson: Alex Reschny
Publicity Coordinator: John Vetter
Secretary: Pauline Bates
Diocesan Appeal and Ministry Sign-up/ Renewal: Yvonne Becotte &
Carol Handfield
Parish Events: Jeannette Shaw
Fundraising: Gregg Apolonio
Parish Pastoral Council
President: Rev. Venerando Sabacan
Secretary: Pauline Bates
Members: Greg Apolonio, Yvonne Becotte, Christina Kinnear
School Council Representatives: Pauline Gerwien
Parish Pastoral Council Election is postponed until September 2020
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION COMMITTEE
Rev. Venerando Sabacan
Gloria Juell
Leeanne Williams
Parish Finance Council
President: Rev. Venerando Sabacan
Pauline Gerwien
Glenda Macarat
Alex Reschny
MAINTENANCE COMMITTEE
Doug Becotte
Lou Duperron
Rodger Sarauer
Parish Groups
Kids for Jesus
"People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, 'let the little children come to me; do not stop; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.' And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them and blessed them." Mark 10,13-16
The group meets every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month from 3:00PM-4:00PM at the Notre Dame Church basement (from September to May).
All children are welcome from ages 3-11 years. Bring your children and meet new friends as they journey in faith together.
Children's Liturgy is every Sunday for children ages 4-7.
Coordinator: Leeanne Williams
Youth Group
“Remember that you are never alone, Christ is with you on your journey every day of your lives! He has called you and chosen you to live in the freedom of the children of God. Turn to him in prayer and in love. Ask him to grant you the courage and strength to live in this freedom always. Walk with him who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”!
St. (Pope) John Paul II
Youth Group (for Grades 6 and up) meets every Monday at 7:00PM beginning December 3rd 2018 at the Notre Dame Parish Basement. Please invite your classmates and friends for an evening of fun and faith-filled activities.
Coordinators: TBA
Celebrating the Word
Celebrating the Word is a process model for faith sharing groups that is designed to replicate the Emmaus encounter. Most of us can identify with the plight of those two disciples. We know their experience. We have been there. And we need a place and a process that will allow us, as a faith community on a regular basis, to make connections between our life stories and the Gospel Story. As with those two disciples, we are assured that when we come together in faith and trust to make connections between our life stories and the Gospel Story, we too will come to experience the presence and power of God's own Spirit: " Were not our hearts burning within us when He opened the scriptures to us."
The Group meets every Tuesday morning from 10:30AM-12Noon at the Church meeting room from September-June
Programs
SYMBOLON
Symbolon: The Catholic Faith Explained
We might be familiar with different aspects of the Catholic Faith. But how does it all fit together? And what difference does it make for our lives? Symbolon: The Catholic Faith Explained opens up the "big picture" of the Catholic Faith in a way that helps us know it, live it, and articulate it to others.
COME JOIN US EVERY 3rd THURSDAY OF THE MONTH AT THE PARISH MEETING ROOM FROM 7:30PM-9:00PM
BIBLE STUDY
BEGINNING January 12, 2020 at 3PM
(Break during Lenten Season)
Chapter 1 : Introducing the Old Testament
Chapter 2: The Peoples and Lands of the Old Testament
Chapter 3: Archaeology and the Old Testament
Chapter 4: Literary Tools for the Old Testament Study
Chapter 5: The Pentateuch
Chapter 6: Genesis 1-11 Preface to Israel's Story
Chapter 7: Genesis 12-50 The Patriarchs
Chapter 8: The Exodus from Egypt
Chapter 9: The Covenant and Journey to Canaan - Exodus 19 through Numbers
Chapter 10: The Israelite Possession of Canaan - The Books of Joshua and Judges
Liturgy Committee
"Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them" John 6,56
The Eucharist is the center of Christian life for the Church and the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ. It is at the heart of all parish life, making the liturgy committee and its ministry among the highest priorities in any parish.
The primary role of the liturgy committee is to focus on the full range of the parish's liturgical life and to represent the consensus of the community in matters related to that liturgical life. It has a mandate to ensure that celebrations are planned in such a way that they lead to a conscious, active and full participation of the faithful both in body and in mind, "as demanded by the very nature of the celebration and to which the Christian people have a right and duty by reason of their Baptism". The actual details of planning liturgical celebrations should be left to those people whom we have engaged for specific liturgical ministries in our parish (Readers, Extra-ordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, Altar Servers, Music, Art & Environment, Hospitality, School Mass and Children's Liturgy).
Members
Fr. Vener Sabacan Leeanne Williams
Yvonne Becotte Pauline Bates
Gerry Lagasse Rick LeGear
Pauline Gerwien Elizabeth Squires
Jenna Gilbertson (Coordinator for Notre Dame School)
Growing In Faith Together (G. I. F. T)
Liturgy
Community and Service
Catechesis
"For it is in the liturgy, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, that 'the work of redemption is accomplished', and it is through the liturgy especially the faithful are enabled to express in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church" Sacrosanctum Concilium#2
Catechesis
Community and Service
Catechesis
"Catechesis is the education in the faith of children, young people and adults which includes especially the teaching of Christian doctrine imparted, generally speaking, in an organic and systematic way, with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of Christian life." Catechism of the Catholic Church#5
Community and Service
Community and Service
Community and Service
"Christian charity truly extends to all, without distinction of race, creed, or social condition: it looks for neither gain nor gratitude...Just as Christ, then, went about all the towns and villages, curing every kind of disease and infirmity as a sign that the kingdom of God had come (cf. Matt. 9:35ff; Acts 10:38), so also the Church, through her children, is one with men of every condition, but especially with the poor and the afflicted." Decree
(Ad Gentes) on the Mission Activity of the Church #12
Catholic Women's League
Catholic Women's League
Catholic Women's League
President: Barbara Frost
CWL Meeting: 1st Wednesday
of the Month at 1PM-Parish Meeting Room
Knights of Columbus
Catholic Women's League
Catholic Women's League
Grand Knight: Greg Apolonio, Jr.
KofC Meeting: 1st Tuesday
of the Month at 7PM
Notre Dame School-Knights' Room