Today We Listen (National Day for Truth & Reconciliation 2021)
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photo credit: Janet Best Truth & Reconciliation Synod 2018
A Collect (from Indigenous Ministries, written to accompany the Covenant of 1994)
Creator God,
from you every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.
You have rooted and grounded us in your covenant love,
and empowered us by your Spirit
to speak the truth in love,
and to walk in your way towards justice and wholeness.
Mercifully grant that your people,
journeying together in partnership,
may be strengthened and guided
to help one another
to grow into the full stature of Christ,
who is our light and our life.
Amen.
Anglican Healing Fund prayer
Merciful God, you call us to loving relationship with one another.
Be with us now as we seek to heal old wounds and find joy again in this relationship.
Replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.
Give us the gifts of honesty and openness, and fill us with your healing power and grace.
We ask this in Jesus’s name.
Amen.
E-News September 29, 2021
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Click Here to view
The Long Road to Reconciliation: Pew & Beyond Returns with a new season
/A Message from the Rev Dr. Neil Mancor & the Rev Lisa Vaughn (Hosts of Pew & Beyond)
We are pleased to invite you our second season of Pew & Beyond launching tomorrow, Tuesday September 28 at 1pm Eastern on Facebook Live
What is Pew & Beyond?
Pew & Beyond is a Facebook Live conversation of the Anglican Church of Canada. Hosted by Neil Mancor (Montreal) and Lisa Vaughn (Nova Scotia) we focus on discipleship in the pews and beyond in the communities in which we all live. Pew and Beyond brings together resources from across Canada in the form of practitioners and programs to encourage us all to think more and get proactive in the whole area of discipleship and disciple-making. There are many good news stories all across our Church.
So join the conversation: Pew and Beyond. Tuesdays at 1pm Eastern on Facebook Live.
In this week when we mark Truth & Reconciliation, our guests are Norm Wesley and Rosalyn Kantlaht'ant Elm. As Anglican priests, both responded to the residential schools by removing their clerical collars.
The title of this week's episode is "The Long Road to Reconciliation". We will listen to the stories of Norm and Rosalyn as they take us into their experience and show us what the pathway of true reconciliation looks like.
We invite you to come with your questions and comments. Come prepared to listen and hear.
Thank-you,
Neil & Lisa
A Message during The Season of Creation from The Stewardship of the Environment Committee
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Healing a Broken World
by Mark Gibson (Chair of the Diocese of Montreal Stewardship of the Environment Committee)
The risen Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit on his followers…us…to fill us and empower us to be Jesus’ partners in growing God’s Kingdom on earth. We are stewards of this wonderful planet, and we recognize with sadness and repentance that in many ways we have done a poor job as stewards. As we repent, we change our ways, and we try to cooperate with the ecosystems God has given us, and to give thanks for the new technologies allowing us, for example, to conserve energy and shift to renewable energy sources.
We give thanks that God has given us everything we need; all we need to do is open our hearts to learn and to change.
As a small committee reporting to Synod and Diocesan Council, the Stewardship of the Environment Committee is currently focusing on enabling practical change by helping congregations and the diocese to become more energy efficient, thereby reducing our carbon footprint while also saving money. We are building partnerships with Concordia University’s Engineering Department, Dawson College and with the Green Churches Network to create tools to guide congregations towards proven equipment and grants for helping to fund them.
We are asking church leaders to highlight our efforts as they communicate the broader importance of addressing climate change, in the context of our Christian calling to be good stewards of God's creation. We encourage the members of our diocese to share the practical actions they are taking, and to reach out if they need assistance considering the options, whether for their parish or their own homes. Be sure to vote in a way which reflects your concern for the environment, and communicate that concern to the politicians you interact with, both before and after the election.
Finally, we are seeking parishes who would like to partner with us in becoming more energy efficient, as well as individuals who would like to join our committee.
May God’s Kingdom come, on earth as in heaven; may we each play our small or big parts in making that happen!
Compline with Bishop Mary Resumes tonight at 8pm
/Join Bishop Mary and Friends for another season of Compline on Facebook Live on Sundays and Wednesdays at 8pm EST resuming TONIGHT
Join HERE
New Covid Revised Guidelines from the Vicar General / Executive Archdeacon
/Executive Archdeacon Robert Camara issued new Covid-19 updates for the Diocese of Montreal
A more concise set of revised guidelines which bring together the various updates from the last year into one document.
Find all Covid updates HERE
New video series Introducing Dr. Myrna Lashley as Workshop Leader for Anti Racism Task Force Workshop Fall 2021
/A NEW 6 part video series introducing Dr. Lashley and her approach to leading the Diocese of Montreal through an anti Racism workshop on October 1-2 2021
Register HERE
Part 1. This is very Important for the Church…
Part 2. Hopes to Challenge Us …
Part 3. These are Trying Times…
Part 4. Listening
Part 5. Confronting Systemic Racism Together
Part 6 Elevating Each Others Dignity
Anti Racism Workshop Register now
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The Anti-Racism Task Force is pleased to deliver a Workshop for Clergy and Lay Leaders of the Diocese of Montreal.
Friday, October 1 7-9pm and Saturday, October 2 10-noon and 1-3pm
REGISTER HERE
Please note that Clergy are expected to attend and Lay leaders throughout the Diocese are strongly encouraged to participate.
Confronting the Past, Looking to the Future: The church’s role in creating systemic racism and what can be done about it, led by Dr. Myrna Lashley via Zoom (see speaker bio below)
This interactive, experiential workshop will provide participants with a foundational understanding of the influence of religious interpretations and practices on concepts of race, culture, class, ethnicity, immigration, sexual orientation and gender in the assessment and interventional decisions relative to place and space when interacting with populations representing these categories. From a systemic models perspective, participants will explore the role and influence of the “Church” on cultural and social issues and its intersections with other human identifiers, such as poverty, housing, genders, abilities, and their many intersections. The consciousness of ethnic identity will also be explored as well as the influence of church doctrines on social, governmental and non-governmental systems. The workshop will challenge Western - European ethnocentrism and question movements which suggest that "God is a white supremacist". The effects of this suggestion not only on an individual’s self-perception, but on the perceptions and interactions of others relative to such individuals, will also be explored.
About The Speaker
photo from Montreal Gazette
Dr. Myrna Lashley holds a Ph.D (thesis title - Informed Proxy Consent: Communication between Surgeons and Surrogates about Pediatric Surgery) in counseling psychology from McGill university. She was an Associate dean at John Abbott College She is also an associate professor in the department of psychiatry of McGill University as well as a researcher and project leader at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research of the Jewish General Hospital. She is an internationally recognized clinical, teaching and, research authority in cultural psychology, and serves as an expert psychological consultant to institutions, including the juvenile justice system. She is also the Chair of the First-Line Psychosocial Science Committee of the Clinical Ethics Committee of CIUSS de centre-ouest-de-l'ile-de-Montréal. She has worked both as a consultant to First Nations and the Jewish communities, and as the Cross Cultural Trainer for the Grievance Committee office of the secretariat for McGill University. She has also conducted training workshops locally, nationally, and internationally and has acted as a consultant to the Brazilian health care system. She was a director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and has also served on the Comité consultatif sur les relations Interculturelles et Interraciales de la Communauté Urbaine de Montréal. From 2008 to 2017 she was the Chair of the Cross Cultural Roundtable on Security. She was the Vice-chair of the board of the École Nationale de Police du Québec from 2004 - 2017. As well as conducting research on police matters, she has also been appointed to the Comité expert en matière de profilage racial of the Service de ploice de la Ville de Montréal and to the Comité-conseil sur l'organisation d'une consultation sur le racisme et la discrimination systémique. She is a consultant to government and non-governmental agencies at the Canadian federal, provincial and municipal levels on issues of equity and inclusivity. In addition to academic publications, she has also authored two training manuals on intercultural issues in the workplace and co-authored book chapters. She has received several awards including the 2015 Woman of Merit Award from the Playmas Montreal
Cultural Association; the Queen Elizabeth II 2012 Diamond Jubilee award; 2006 Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Award for Holocaust studies; the 2004 Martin Luther King legacy award; as well as the 1995 Merit Award for the Kanawake Native survival school.
Her current research focuses on the intersections of culture, terrorism and national security.
She is currently Barbados’s Honorary Consul to Montreal.
