january 2012

© St. Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church, Toronto

MONTHLY EVENTS January 2012 Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 7

Jan 7 Youth Famine -

John & Jincy’s residence (9 am)

Pastoral Council Meeting

Jan 8 Parish Council

Meeting Youth Meeting Jan 15 Parish General

Body Meeting

2:30 PM Sunday School 4:00 PM Prayers 3:30 PM – 4:15 PM Confessions 4:30 PM Holy Qurbono

Contact Information: Fr. John Kuriakose, 222 Ridley Blvd, Toronto, ON, M5M 3M6 Tel: (416) 485 7781 [email protected]

Sunday Liturgy

Malankara Catholic Church St. Mary’s Mission Toronto

St. Eugene’s Chapel ◊ 13 Regina Avenue ◊ Toronto, Ontario ◊ M6A 1R2 www.stmarysmalankaracatholicchurchtoronto.ca

[email protected]

Inside the Issue New Year Message 2

Snippets from Science 4

Saint of the Month 6

MCYM Food Drive 8

The Editorial 3…2…1…Happy New Year! De-cember was quite the eventful month, and what better way to wrap up yet another joyous year than to gather together as a family for a night of fun games, a shared meal, and entertain-ment. We celebrated the end of an amazing year with our an-nual parish night held on De-cember 30th at Don Bosco School. The night started off with ice breakers and games held by the youth which was followed by a night jam packed with performances by our Sun-day School children, youth, and parents alike. This year we were especially honoured to have Rev.Fr. Andrew MacBeth, Pastor of St.Margret’s Church not only join us for the evening, but also share with us a mes-sage and blessing for Christmas and the New Year. In this month’s bulletin, Amit Mathew’s column Snippets from Science- Glimpses of God’s Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey to some of the mysteries of our beautiful earth with the space

probe Voyager-1 in his article entitled “Journey to the Edge of Forever”. As we slowly return to the regular hustle and bustle of our daily routine, the happiness of Christmas still remains. With bright lights still trimming our homes, and the smell of gingerbread lingering in the air, we are still captivated in the trance of the “Christmas spirit”. As we remember trying to move through the busy crowds, our arms filled with gifts and wrapping paper, Ra-jesh Jacob asks us to take a moment as we stand in line to ask ourselves, “Was ‘Jesus’ Born in a Shopping Mall?” as we reflect on the true spirit of Christmas. As we welcome in 2012, let us be thankful to God for his abiding grace that has carried us through. Our hope and wish for all of you is a year full of happiness as we journey together to come close with Lord. ~ The Editors


Malankara Catholic Church

New Year’s Message - His Excellency Most Rev Dr. Thomas Mar Eusebius This is the season of gifts. During this season, we exchange a lot of gifts joyfully, we give them, we receive them. The greatest gift ever ex-changed in human history is Christmas itself, God gifting His only Son to humanity. It is this Gift that we celebrate on the Christmas day. The second important gift during this season is the New Year. God in His abundant mercy and love provides us another year to love Him and to serve His children. As we know, life in its totality is a gra-tuitous gift from God. We do not deserve it, we have no claim over it. Everything in life is God’s free gift. Human life is constituted by the totality of the time that is at our disposal. It is by giving us time that God sustains our life on earth. Therefore, time is the greatest gift that God gives us in life. At the threshold of every New Year, we are reminded of this precious gift of God. God gives us yet another year freely; God give us time. What should be our Christian response to this precious gift? There is an inter-esting parable about a barren fig tree in the Gospel according to St. Luke. The fig tree has been nur-tured for the past three years. But it never yielded any fruit. Finally the owner of the garden almost de-cides to cut it down. Why should the precious soil be wasted for this barren tree? But at the behest of the gardener, the owner has a second thought, to spare the fig tree one more year, to bear the fruit it ought to bear (Lk. 13: 6-9). The fig tree is given an additional year freely by the owner of the garden, so that the tree should bear fruit. In fact every New Year has to be seen from the background of this Gospel passage. Just as the fig tree did not deserve another year of existence, rather it was the free gift of the owner of the garden, the New Year is gifted to us by God so that we may bear fruit through our life. In this sense, the New Year is a great responsibility on our part, it is an opportunity given by God in order to bear fruit. It is an invita-tion to take life seriously, to make the best use of all the opportunities that our life provides us. As we step in to every New Year we must be overwhelmed by a deep sense of gratitude and indebted-ness to God for the free gift of our time and of our life which is the totality of the time that is at our dis-posal. For our life, for all its varied experiences, for the time that is the basis for these experiences, we owe immensely to God and to all the realities around us which God permits to be part of our life. This genuine sense of indebtedness for the free gift of life must prompt us to take our life seriously. Taking life seriously ultimately amounts to taking time seriously. Our life is fulfilled only through the responsible use of the time that is at our disposal. Every moment is precious. Therefore it would be s a sin to waste time – a sin against God who gives us freely our life and its time. Our life becomes mean-ingful only when we are able to enrich our surrounding and this universe through the proper use of our time. The goal of our life is to create as much goodness as possible in this world. That is why the Lord of life has given us freely this life and the time. Therefore as we welcome the New Year, let us resolve ourselves to make the best use of the time that the New Year provides us, not to waste even a single minute of our precious life. I wish all of you a very fruitful, grace-filled New Year.



Holy Father’s Intentions for the Month

GENERAL INTENTION: Victims of Natural Disasters. That the victims of natural disasters may receive the spiritual and material comfort they need to rebuild their lives. MISSION INTENTION: Dedication to Peace. That the dedication of Christians to peace may bear witness to the name of Christ before all men and women of good will.

Was ‘Jesus‘ born in a Shopping Mall? It’s that time of the year again when we would wish each other “Happy New Year”; our hearts filled with genuine and sincere joy for our brothers and sisters. Another Christ-mas has passed by. The Christmas tree looked beauti-ful, adorned with all the glitter but now the decorations need to be packed away. We now have the chance to pause and ask ourselves, what was so joyous about the season? Was it the glitter and pompous adornments on the wall? Or was it the bright reds and greens of the season? Did the snowflakes give me more joy? Or the new winter jacket that I got on sale? The carols are no longer heard on music chan-nels. The shopping malls have lost the buzz. All the gifts have been unwrapped, and Santa has done his good deeds for

the year. Let’s ask ourselves if we had a true a Christmas season or was it just another holiday? With the shopping malls getting so busy at this time of the year, and Christ being the reason for the sea-son, I just can’t help to think “Was Jesus Christ born in a shopping Mall?” The gospel gives a joyous proc-lamation to all who have been waiting for centuries. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I pro-claim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a saviour has been born for you who is Mes-siah and Lord” (Luke 2: 10) The gospel says that it is a good news of great joy it is for all people and the saviour is born for

each one of us, and that sav-iour is the Messiah & Lord. It is easy to understand why it should be a good news of great joy, as a baby being born is always a great joy to his/her parents and family. But why is it good news of great joy to ALL people? How can this baby, be a saviour and what is HE sav-ing us from? Isaiah prophesied the answer to this query almost 700 years before: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, To heal the broken-hearted. To proclaim liberty to the cap-tives and release to the prison-ers To announce an year of favour from the Lord, and a day of vin-dication by our God

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Snippets from Science – Glimpses of God’s Beautiful Mind JOURNEY TO THE EDGE OF FOREVER He telleth the number of stars; He calleth them all by their names. Psalms 147:4 It is He who made the Earth by His power, who established the World by His wisdom and by His understanding stretched out the Heavens. Jeremiah 10:12 I look above at the starry heavens with wonder and awe, my eyes gleaming in the cool starlight; and I dreamt I was aboard that tiny space probe that could… Pale Blue Dot On 14 February 1990, the space probe Voyager-1 had reached a distance of some 6 billion kilome-ters from the Earth, scurrying away from us on its epic journey past the planets and into inter-stellar space. The spacecraft had just enough fuel left to carry out one last special feat, and on that day the mission controllers gave that in-struction. The legendary astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996) had persuaded NASA to turn Voy-ager-1 around, to face back towards its mother planet one last time. Travelling at the speed of light, the signal took 6 hours to reach the space-craft, but when it did Voyager-1 responded obe-diently. As it turned, it laid open its camera – the camera that over a 13 year mission had captured some of the most breathtaking and awe-inspiring images of worlds we never knew could be so strange. Voyager-1 took a last photograph of every planet it could see and over the next three months transmitted them back to Earth. The re-sult includes one of the most powerful, iconic images of all time: the planet Earth, very tiny and almost indistinguishable from the thousands of points of light behind it, appears as a tiny pale blue dot, less than a single pixel wide! It is a humbling and deeply inspiring picture – all hu-manity, our achievements, all our combined hopes and dreams captured in this pinpoint of

light. This was the first time mother Earth had smiled at a camera 6 billion kilometers away and until then no one really knew how it looked from so far out. Thanks to Voyager-1, now we know! From Here to Eternity On 17 February 1998, Voyager-1 became the far-thest man made object from Earth, passing an-other probe Pioneer-10. Today it continues to travel and is about 17.9 billion kilometres away from home, hurtling away at a breakneck speed of 61200 km/h, faster than a speeding bullet. Launched in 1977, it is pushing at the outer fringes of our solar system now and ready to break into interstellar space, destined to wander eternally among the stars. However, this remark-able probe has only begun its journey into what is the immensity of space. We can only vaguely surmise all the wondrous sights that await Voy-ager-1 in its far future, but its power source would have long died out making it impossible for it to establish contact with its mother planet again. At its current velocity, almost an eternity would pass before it breaks out of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Galaxies have been called island uni-verses and for a good reason. Our solar system is located on one lonely corner of one of the spiral arms of our galaxy and our view is edge-on, the reason why the Milky Way appears like a band of light in the sky. This band of light is actually an aggregation of over 100 billion stars. The diame-ter of our galaxy spans so vast a distance that if you were travelling at the speed of light, it would still take you 100,000 years to cross it. That’s 965 quadrillion kilometers, with an average dis-tance of 58 trillion kilometers between its stars! Measuring distances so vast in kilometers is cumbersome, the reason why astronomers use other units like light years and AU. Its only now with advances in technology that we have begun to realize just how enormous and mind-bogglingly huge our galaxy is. And yet,

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our galaxy is just the beginning of what is out there! Our next-door galactic neighbor is the An-dromeda galaxy, a behemoth even bigger than our Milky Way. So many galaxies have now been discovered that they are said to be as common as blades of grass on a golf course. About 10 billion galaxies are present in the observable universe each with hundreds of billions of stars! Yet, there is more. These awesome galaxies are not scat-tered haphazardly in space. Instead, there are arranged in definite groups called clusters, like grapes in a bunch tied together by their mutual gravitational attraction. Thousands of these ga-lactic clusters have been observed. The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy are part of a cluster of about twenty galaxies. The distance between galaxies within a cluster average about a million light years and the distance of one ga-lactic cluster to another may be a hundred times that. At this point, all I can say is that my jaw has dropped to the floor and only one word comes to my mind. One word. Wow! How about ‘Alive’? No, the sub-headline’s not about The Joker’s (Heath Ledger) immortal question in the 2008 Batman movie The Dark Knight. It’s about some-thing far more primal and fundamental. How did the Universe come up with the recipe for Life? How did inanimate molecules of matter burst into Life? How did lifeless atoms come alive? We’ve seen that different levels of organization exist within the Universe even with its sheer size and complexity. The clockwork precision with which the various elements of the Universe work makes even the staunchest atheist wonder if some entity actually designed and then kick-started the Universe with a Big Bang. Just as the smallness of subatomic particles stupefies us, the colossal size of the Universe leaves us stumped, speechless and completely jaw-dropped. Who could have made all this? What is its purpose? The first question is easy. Only God

who can visualize matter at the ‘Nano’ scale is omniscient enough to create and visualize a Uni-verse that is on the other end of the size spec-trum. There’s so much perfection and precision within the wheels and cogs turning the Universe and the physical laws governing it that it is mathematically impossible that the Universe could have risen by itself. The second question is a philoso- phical one. The ultimate purpose of the Universe could be to offer the right circumstances for life to originate and proliferate. If humans and Life exist only on planet Earth, the rest of the Universe seems incredibly super- fluous. On the other hand, God has the power to create Life and even other human races on myr-iad planets in galaxies peppered throughout the Universe. The Universe is God’s canvas and he could paint all across it. Although we might never be able to find other human races, if they exist, thanks to the mind-bending distances in-volved, we can also never be sure that such races do not exist. Either way, Science might never be able to find an answer. So it all comes down to this: Is there life elsewhere? I don’t know, but would like to quote a great line by the character of Jodie Foster’s father in the 1997 movie Con-tact. On being asked the same question he re-plies, “I don’t know, but I guess I’d say if it is just us… seems like an awful waste of space!” On a more positive note, Voyager-1 might have an an-swer a thousand billion years from now, but only if we are still here and able to track it down! Roger that. Over and Out. Next Month: Mysteries from the Bible. Stay Tuned! ~ Amit M.

Snippets from Science – Glimpses of God’s Beautiful Mind con tinued



The Life of a Saint - St. Catherine of Alexandria Every day Catholics honour various saints in the Church. There are practically enough saints for all 365 days in the year! On November 25th, St. Catherine of Alexandria is par-ticularly remembered as a great martyr in the Catholic Church. She was born to a pagan governor of Alexan-dria, Egypt in 282 A.D. Cath-erine was a beautiful young girl, who was very interested in learning about philosophy and religion. When Catherine was young, she began to read about Christianity and ever since that time, she felt a special presence and inter-est towards Christ. She con-verted to Christianity in her late teens after she received a vision from Christ about Em-peror Maxentius persecuting Christians. When Catherine was 18, Maxentius began to per-secute Christians in Alexan-dria, just as she had seen in her vision. Fearlessly, she went to tell him what she thought of his cruelty. When he spoke of the pagan gods, she very plainly showed him that they were false. Maxentius could not answer her arguments. Therefore, he sent for 50 of his best pagan philosophers. Once again, it was Catherine who proved the truth of her religion. All 50 philosophers were con-

vinced that she was right. In great fury, Maxentius had every one of them killed. Next, he tried to win her by offering her a queen's crown. When Catherine refused it, he had

her beaten and thrown into prison. When Maxentius was away at camp, his wife and his main officer were interested to hear Catherine speak about this amazing God, so they went to visit her cell. Eventually they and 200 other soldiers were converted to the Christian faith. Upon Maxentius’ return, he was so furious at what Catherine had done, that he

put all 200 soldiers, his wife, and his main officer to death. In punishment, Catherine was forced to stand on the bearing wheel, a torturous wheel full of large spikes that caused much

bleeding and pain to a per-son. However, as soon as Catherine touched the wheel, the entire thing col-lapsed to the ground, sav-ing her from a horrible death. Unfortunately, due to Maxentius’ persistent disbelief in Christ, Cath-erine was beheaded in 305 A.D. In the 6th century, Emperor Justinian estab-lished Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai, between 548 and 565 A.D. in Saint Catherine, Egypt. To this day, Saint Cath-erine's Monastery survives as a famous place of early Christian art, architecture and illuminated manu-

scripts, that is still open to vis-iting scholars. St. Catherine died as a martyr, by offering her life to Christ. She is the patron saint of philosophers and young adults. St. Cath-erine of Alexandria is a great role model for all youth, show-ing them that one must be fearless and bear witness to Christ at any and every oppor-tunity. ~ Divya M.



Was ‘Jesus‘ born in a Shopping Mall? con tinued . . . To comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah Ch 61: Vr 1-3) Almost thirty years after the birth of Jesus when he started his public ministry, we see Je-sus being handed over the scrolls to read, and this was exactly the passage that he read from the Old Testament. The gospel of St. Luke 4: 20 says “Rolling up the scroll he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked in-tently at him. He said to them - Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” Thus Jesus confirmed that it was about HIM that Isaiah prophesied 700 years ago. Prophet Isaiah has listed the reasons to be joyful for:

To those who are broken hearted, the one who heals is born,

to the one who is held a captive or prisoner to sin, a saviour is born who releases them from this captivity,

to all those who mourn a comforter has been born.

In our meditative prayer, as we journey with Jesus, where do we find ourselves? Are we com-panions who accept him, or do we reject him? Do we proclaim him or do we renounce him? When Christmas turns into just fun and merry making

aren’t we just like King Herod and his friends who heard of the Magi travelling to adore baby Jesus but did not go to adore themselves, but rather they indulged in their merry making. As we rush to the shopping malls, let us ask ourselves, if the birth of Jesus is the reason for the joy of the season, then, why are we searching for him in shopping malls, and fancy dinners? The Magi travelled far from the East, suffering hardships and yet they presented the best to baby Jesus. (Mathew 2: 11). Likewise, to enjoy the birth of Jesus and to experience the deliver-ance as prophesied by Isaiah, we too have to keep the night watch (prayerful observance of the Advent), we too, have to travel far from our comforts, our con-veniences, our abomina-ble habits, and present baby Jesus with the best we have. When Jesus listed the Beatitudes he said “Blessed are the pure of heart for they will see God” (Mathew 5:8) It is noteworthy here that the angel appeared and proclaimed the good

news to the shepherds who kept a night watch over their flock. (Luke 2: 8) At the beginning of another year, let us fall in love not with the glitter and show, but rather let’s fall in love with JESUS. Let our Blessed Mother and holy saints intercede for our intentions. Let us pray that all may have a blessed 2012 filled with divine graces. ~ Rajesh J.



MCYM Food Drive 2011 During the Christmas season, we gather with our family friends to share our love for one another, and thank God for our many blessings; however, it is also a time when we remember those who do not have as much as we do and unfortunately, sometimes no one. This year, MCYM took the initiative, with the support of

the parish, to hold another Christmas Food Drive to do-nate non-perishable food items to those in need. Over the course of December, our par-ish collected over 100 items, contributing canned goods, pastas, and much more to make this Christmas a more joyful one for families and indi-viduals who need our support. As Christian’s it is our respon-sibility to answer God’s call to be instruments of His peace and to offer hope to those who pray prayers of rescue. We often take many of our bless-ings for granted, but for those in need, being able to have a Christmas meal could be that Christmas miracle that they were praying for. During such times, a very relevant passage comes to mind: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheri-tance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry

and you gave me something to eat…” (Matthew 25: 34 -35). It is true what they say that “Tis’ the season to be jolly”; however, even more impor-tantly “tis’ the season to make others jolly”, for it is in giving that we receive and it in loving that we are loved. ~ Neil T

Coffee Sponsors

Jan 1 N/A

Jan 15 Simon & Lali

Jan 22 Babu & Valsa

Jan 29 TBD

Jan 8 Simon & Lali

Date Candle 1 Candle 2 Marbahasa 1 Marbahasa 2 Bell Readings Thurible

Dec 31 Samson Christopher Neil Reuben Lynn

Jan 15 Christopher Samson Deepak Leo Neil Lynn Br. Jobin

Jan 22 Samson

Jan 29 Neil Reuben Samson Deepak Christopher Lynn Br. Jobin

Deepak

Christopher Deepak Neil Lynn Br. Jobin Leo

Br. Jobin

Jan 8 Neil Samson Christopher Deepak Br. Jobin Lynn Leo

Altar Servers Schedule - January

Liturgical Cycle

Ariyippu Kalam Nov 1 – Dec 20

Deneha Kaalam (Elda Kalam) Dec 21- Feb 21

Valiya Nombu Kalam Feb 22 – Apr 11

Kyamtha Kalam Apr 12 – May 30

PentiKosthi Kalam May 31 – Aug 5

Tejaskarana Kalam Aug 6 – Sept 13

Sleeba Kalam Sept 14 – Oct 31



Parish Night 2011 Every year, our Toronto Malayalee Community hosts programs for Christmas, which we call ‘Parish Night’. On Friday, December 30th, 2011, we had our Parish Night at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School. The evening began with some fun and entertaining games conducted by the youth, some of which included Merry Fishmas, Candle and Match game, and Coin in the Bowl. After the games, dinner was served at 7:00 pm. The food was a perfect representation of our real Malayalee culture, with rice and different dishes

that you w o u l d only find in Kerala. Following dinner, we began the programs at 8:00 pm with introduc-tions from our MC’s Christine J a i s o n and Dee-pak Wil-son. Our c h i e f guest for

the night was Fr. Andrew Macbeth, and we were blessed to have him in our presence. There were a variety of programs from songs and dances to skits and tableaus. It was a wonderful opportunity for our Sunday school children, youth, and adults to display their God given talents and give glory to the Lord. We would like to thank the families who opened up their homes to us to learn and

practice the programs we performed, our Cate-chism teachers who taught us these programs and dedicated their time to make this night a success. We would also like to send a sincere thanks to Fr. Daiju for his prayers and support. Finally, we must thank our Lord Jesus Christ for showering his abundant blessings and graces on us. Happy New Year to you all! ~ Divya M.



FEAST WISHES

FEAST DAY JANUARY 1ST HIS BEATITUDE MORAN MOR

BASELIOS CLEEMIS Major Archbishop of Syro Malankara

Church

FEAST DAY JANUARY 8TH HIS EXCELLENCY RT. REV. DR. PHILIPOSE MAR STEPHANOS

Auxiliary Bishop of Tiruvalla

FEAST DAY JANUARY 17TH HIS EXCELLENCY RT. REV. DR.

THOMAS MAR ANTHONIOS Curial Bishop of Syro Malankara Church

FEAST DAY JANUARY 22ND HIS EXCELLENCY RT. REV. DR.

GEEVARGHESE MAR TIMOTHIOS Bishop Emeritus of Tiruvalla

FEAST DAY JANUARY 29TH HIS EXCELLENCY RT. REV. DR.

JOSHUA MAR IGNATHIOS Bishop of Mavelikkara

Liturgy of the Month Week Gospel Readings Epistles Old Testament Readings

Jan 1 Luke 2: 21-24 Jesus Presented in the Temple

1 Pet 5: 5-11 Eph 4: 17-24

Gen 21: 8-14 Judge 13: 24-44

Zech 8: 3-12

Jan 8 John 1: 43-51 Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael

1 Peter 3: 8-17 Phil 1: 12-20

Ex 3: 1-15 Wis 7: 1-12

Isaiah 1: 43-51

Jan 15 Luke 4: 16-22 Jesus Rejected at Nazareth

1 Pet 1: 13-25 Rom 3: 1-8

Josh 4: 1-14 Prov 10: 1-12

Isa 61: 1-4

Jan 22 John 3: 1-15 Jesus Teaches Nicodemus

Acts 9: 1-9 1 Cor 3: 18-23

Josh 7: 10-15 Prov 3: 1-12 Jer 30: 1-11

Jan 29 Mark 12: 28-34 Paying the Imperial Tax to Caesar

1 Pet 2: 11-17 1 Cor 4: 6-14

Deut 18: 9-22 1 Sam 16: 1-13 Isaiah 43: 14-28

COMMEMORATION JANUARY 18TH HIS GRACE MOST REV. CYRIL MAR BASELIOS

The Third Metropolitan Archbishop and the First Major Archbishop-Catholicos

of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church

COMMEMORATION JANUARY 18TH HIS EXCELLENCY MOST REV.

JOSEPH MAR SEVERIOS The Second Metropolitian of Tiruvalla

january 2012

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