TWO ORDINATONS IN OCTOBER. PLAN TO BE THERE!

Our Eparchy will be having two ordinations in the middle of October – One on the “lower mainland” and one on “the Island”. These will be happy days for those being ordained and for our entire Eparchy!

The first ordination will be that of Subdeacon Adrian Kopystynsky to the Diaconate at the Protection of the Mother of God [St. Mary’s] Parish in Vancouver on Sunday 11 October 2026! The second ordination will be that of Connor Rafferty to the Minor Orders and Subdiaconate at St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island on Sunday 18 October 2026.

Please keep these two gentlemen in your prayer as they prepare for their ordinations. Know that you are welcome to attend. Do, however, check with the respective parishes for more details and if there is any requirement regarding a reception.

PRAY FOR MORE VOCATIONS! We truly need more people to step forward to serve as trained and dedicated Readers… Subdeacons… Deacons… and Priests… and, of course, those dedicated to the Monastic/Religious way of life as Brothers and Monks and as Sisters with so many charisms and in so many ways!

On the 2024 World Day of Prayer for Vocations, Pope Francis said that we need people of courage to commit to be pilgrims of Hope and builders of Peace! Can YOU be such a person!?

The website for the 2026 World Day of Prayer for Vocations offers a number of reflections and PRAYERS FOR VOCATIONS. Please take a look at and read those various prayers for vocations….. and listen with your soul if the Lord is not calling you to serve Him and His People in a special way…

HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW BEGINNING!

September 1st is upon us again. We pass into a new Church year and into new opportunities to renew our life in Christ on an individual basis and together with our entire parish!

When the secular new year rolls around on January 1st, we celebrate and we look back over the past year and wonder what the new year will bring. We make “resolutions” as to how we will change (or how we really want to change). We talk about the bad habits that we will quit (overeating, excessive drinking or ceasing the abuse of any variety of substances or addictive habits). We talk about the good habits that we will focus on (living healthier, working less obsessively and spending more time with family, volunteering more, living my faith at least at a minimum level).

The new Church Year is even more exciting! It is the opportunity (and an excellent excuse!) to enter into a new year of a Gospel life that is guided by the awesome teachings of Christ’s Church (refined over the last two millennia) and energized by Sacramental and Liturgical practices that transform our lives every Sunday and even every single day!

THIS IS IT! This is the day that the Lord has made! Why wait!? There is no benefit in procrastinating! On the contrary, every time we delay the very simple decision to put one foot in front of the other and start finally moving forward, we waste time and we risk squandering the lifetime that the Lord in in His Love has gifted to us.

September 1st… the new Church year…. based on the Imperial Indiction from the ancient Roman Empire…. signifies a new beginning.    

This New Ecclesial Year serves as a kind of “spiritual reset” for the annual cycle of feasts, fasts, and Scriptural readings. This has been the practice at least since the great First Council of Nicaea in the year 325.

Indiction comes from the Latin word for Declaration (indictio). Because on this day – first every 15 years and, to some degree later, annually - a declaration was made throughout the empire about new conditions about property assessments and owing taxes and such.

Well, the Gospel reading for this special day in our Church (Luke 4:16-22) is also all about a “Declaration” made by Jesus Christ in the famous episode where He declares a whole new beginning for the entire world! As Jesus the Lord, puts away the scroll in that Syndgogue, He begins with, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring GOOD NEWS…!” Everyone in that synagogue is either shocked or filled with insuppressible joy or both! We are invited to open our minds and hearts to the latter reaction on September 1st. As we renew the delight of not only being followers of Christ, but as ones who are called to LIVE and SPREAD that Good NEWS as well!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! As we begin a new Church Year!

PRAY FOR YOUR SEMINARIANS!

On Sunday 30 August 2026, the seminarians for our Eparchy made their way across the mountains to Edmonton on the eve of the beginning of the new Church Year and the new Seminary Year at Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Seminary. Alexander Emanuelli, originally from Holy Cross Parish in Surrey and Juan Pablo Salas, from Holy Eucharist Cathedral Parish in New Westminster, will be living the formation program at Holy Spirit Seminary while pursuing studies in philosophy and theology at Newman Theological College.

We don’t know what the future holds for these young men. We don’t know what the Lord’s Will is for each of them. However, they felt a call in their hearts to serve the Lord. They are presently discerning day by day whether the Lord might not be calling them to serve His Church and His People as priests! They discern by prayer – i.e. their prayer and OUR PRAYER - and by living in the seminary environment that provides them with training, studies and a fraternal atmosphere in which they can explore their vocation.

Please keep our seminarians and all seminarians in your regular prayer! It is no secret that we can always use more priests - good and holy and bright and dedicated priests to serve us and lead us. So as we pray for the seminarians of today, let us also pray for more vocations to the priestly and monastic (religious) life!

The main theme of our Synod of Bishops this past summer at Zarvanytsia, Ukraine was exactly that - "Vocations to the Priestly Ministry and to the Consecrated [Monastic] Life”. Read the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter here: [Come Follow Me!].

Here is a version of the famous Prayer for Good Priests by the Venerable Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky….

“Lord, O Lord, look down from heaven, survey and visit the vineyard which You planted with Your right hand. May Your all-powerful hand be upon our people that You love. Grant us, Eternal God, in every generation to the end of the world – holy bishops and priests filled with Your Spirit... pastors and teachers of Your law who skilfully and without compromise uphold the truth of Your holy revelation and who teach and lead the people with love. Grant Your clergy the grace of never fearing sacrifice when it concerns Your glory and the good of Your People. Inflame the hearts of Your Priests with a zeal for the salvation of souls.... grant them a supreme sense of the holiness of the mission to which You have called them... bless their work... protect them from harm... unite them by Your grace that they would be as one...”