St. Michael's Mission has moved!

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Dear Friends,

 We are pleased to let you know that St. Michael’s Mission is now open at its new home at St. George’s Anglican Church located at 1101 Stanley Street, Montréal H3B 2S6.

 The move went smoothly and the essential improvements have been completed. The space is clean, warm and welcoming. Our community of daily visitors is truly pleased with the new and revitalized location. Their smiles say it all!

 We want to take this opportunity to thank you for your ongoing, loyal support. We could not do what we do without you. Your generosity during this transitional period has been invaluable and we could not be more grateful.

 Please let us know if you have any questions or if you would like to schedule some time for a visit.

 With gratitude,

 Laurent Dyke

PS, in case you haven’t seen it, please visit our new website at https://stmichaelsmission.ca/ We hope you like it as much as we do!

Announcements re Black Heritage Month Celebration

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Announcements re Black Heritage Month Celebration February 18th 9:30am

*****The BHM conference and and worship service will be available online for those who are unable to attend in person*****

How? Cathédrale Christ Church Cathedral, Montréal YouTube channel on Sat. Feb. 18th as of 9:30am EST ****

***La conférence et le culte seront diffusés en direct sur la chaîne YouTube de la cathédrale Christ Church de Montréal demain !***

We are pleased to announce that there will be merchandise available to purchase at the event

  • t-shirts ($25.00)

  • coffee mugs ($12.00)

  • tote bags ($20.00)

Note that this is an important fundraiser for the ongoing anti racism work of the Anti Racism Task Force of the Diocese of Montreal

Thank you for your support! See you on Saturday!

Contact us for more info

Join Neil's 2023 Lent Book Club - Thursdays.

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Join Neil's 2023 Lent Book Club - Thursdays.

 In Lent 2023 Neil is going to be reading Kevin Makin's book Why Would Anyone Go to Church? It tells the story of the founding of Eucharist Church in Hamilton, ON and Kevin's conviction that the Church still matters, perhaps more than ever before.

 

When? Thursdays in Lent beginning February 23. 10am OR 7pm

 Steps to take:

  1. Purchase the book! It is available in Kindle format.

  2. Start enjoying the story.

  3. Grab a cup of coffee and join in small group conversations.

RSVP with Neil at nmancor@montreal.anglican.ca

Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future - A Reflection by Edward Yankie

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Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future : a reflection by Edward Yankie (co-chair of Anti Racism Task Force, Anglican Diocese of Montreal)

drawing of the cathedral by remrov remrovsartwork.com

The cathedral spire, surrounded by nothing but sky, was the tallest and most impressive thing around, dwarfing everything for miles. The sandstone pillars near the bright-red doorway were pristine, smooth and unblemished, like everything else about the sparkling, six-year-old jewel of Canada. Saint Catherine Street smelled of mud and horse. It was quiet. In the summer, you could hear the buzzing of honeybees and the chirping of robins while the nearby trees rustled in the gentle breeze. But now it was late November and crisp, and you could hear the wind howl as the last of the falling leaves swirled onto the wet, semi-frozen mud.

Inside the church, a funeral was being held. The important dignitaries and invited guests—as white as White could be—were up front, as usual, and the riffraff, the needy, the less-well-off, and curiosity-seekers, were in the back where they “belonged”, as usual. Servants of colour waited outside, attending the horses and carriages. The funeral was for Margaret Louisa Howell, mother of Varina Davis, and mother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, president of the short-lived Confederate States of America. This was the beloved matriarch of the Davis family, their family rock, being obsequiously and ceremonially laid to rest.

Jefferson Davis, the closest thing North American history has to a Hitler, the leader of the South who devoted his life to the Big Lie of White supremacy and the preservation of chattel slavery, and would defend both until his dying day, was not at the funeral but visiting Richmond, Virginia. But a couple years before, in the August after the end of the war and Lincoln's assassination the previous April, he was greeted enthusiastically by loving and admiring throngs of Southern sympathizers in Montreal (and also Toronto, cheered by literally thousands), and endless verses of the song Dixie. Try imagining a half hour of that. The man who called The Emancipation Proclamation “the most execrable measure recorded in the history of guilty man” lived in a big, self-important house right next to the cathedral where The Bay now stands. Montreal was a city known for welcoming Confederates who were fleeing trial or just wanted to get out of the States. And Davis was welcomed with open and enthusiastic arms. And that November day, at least, the cathedral was full of his family and children, his supporters and well-wishers, and by people who whole-heartedly believed, despite the example and teachings of Jesus, that slavery was an expression of God's will.

Fast-forward to now. The scaffold-enshrouded spire has been replaced and reworked and is dominated by glass and steel buildings larger than anyone at that funeral would dare to imagine. The scene is as unbelievable to them as the front page of the Gazette announcing Barack Obama's presidential win. Saint Catherine Street is paved, packed with people, and clogged with magical horseless carriages (that are destroying the planet) and awash with bus fumes and engine noise and horns and flashing electric lights. The sandstone pillars in front of the church look like an orc took a bite out of them because the architects didn't understand the Canadian winters. Inside, people are still saying many of the same prayers as Jefferson Davis's family, prayers that go back way before that, indeed two thousand years before that. But now a beautiful Black family is at the front of the cathedral, standing no doubt exactly where the Davis family stood, and a baby is being baptized, and welcomed, and celebrated by the whole community with love for her essence and all her amazing potential.

It is still a mere handful of decades, not that long ago at all, since 1959, when the Daughters of the Confederacy (no fans of desegregation or civil rights) placed a plaque commemorating Davis on the outside wall of The Bay. And put up a new tombstone for “Ma” in a city cemetery and draped it with a home-made Confederate flag. It was the early years of the civil rights movement, and these daughters knew what they were doing, what they were expressing and fighting for, and whom they were hurting. And it was—think of this, gentle reader—as recently as 2017 when that plaque came down, removed in the aftermath of a torch-wielding-Nazi-mob marching on Charlottesville, and the murder of a young woman by a White supremacist who drove his car into a crowd to express his homicidal hate. Removed at long last by people couldn't take, let alone celebrate, the lie, or what that plaque stood for, anymore. The Toronto Star complained, mourning that removing the plaque “was wrong.”

Three years later: the murder of George Floyd. The idea of racial justice seemed to ignite world-wide for a while, and the Anti-Black Racism Task Force was formed in the Anglican Diocese of Montreal along with hundreds of other suchlike groups all over the world. We are about to begin our third year of work. Literally nothing has changed statistically in terms of police violence. The George Floyd Justice and Policing Act was defeated by Republicans who didn't want it, and the problem has yet to be addressed on a national level. Police shoot and kill an average of 1,000 a year in the US, the vast majority people of colour. In 2022 the number was 1,176. Before we shake our heads while looking down from a high rock, police shootings in Canada were up 25% in 2022. Bad things tend to bleed north. And they continue to do so.

But the news is not all bleak. In November of 2022, while the city of Montreal was awarding three million dollars to hundreds of protesters whose rights were violated by city police (while, ironically enough, marching to protest police brutality), the Anglican Diocese of Montreal was holding an All Hands on Deck Brainstorming Session in order to look inward as well as outward, and it was enthusiastically attended by clergy and laity alike. People talked, shared, listened, and learned. Honesty flowed in all directions, always good, though, of course, sometimes painful, and people of various hues and backgrounds who sincerely wish to follow Jesus thought along together on many pressing issues for the church and the world. We weren't just assessing problems, but looking for solutions, concrete deeds we can do inside the church, and also forms of activism we can take in our city, province, and country. And this will be sustained in a focussed way in the year ahead. And the years beyond that.

While the diocese reflected on itself and its environs, the Canadian Council of Churches, looking at the big picture, was not idle, as reflected in similar meetings of CEARN, the Canadian Ecumenical Anti-Racism Network. The conclusions that are being reached by our diocese are also being reached on a much broader level. And here is a recent CEARN summary:

--There is a need to gather and connect.

--There is a need for resources: written publications, workshops, learning opportunities, people, and online tools and information.

--There is a need to support each other: to encourage and inspire each other and to know that we are not alone in this work.

And, as everyone agreed at the diocesan brainstorming session, there is the need for more stories and more listening, accompanied by prayer and direct action And it was generally appreciated by most that there are times when White people need to do more listening. Hence our forthcoming Coffee, Croissants, and Conference on February 18th at 9:30am on the Saturday of our Black Heritage Celebration. And this year's theme: Black History 365. The month is special, but the days of opening that door of truth merely one solitary month of the year so that the rest of the year can stay White are over. Without Black history, which many politicians are still trying to repress and erase, history itself is indeed bunk. How, for example, can we learn about Anglican church history without looking at its role in colonialism and slavery? We all deserve the truth 365 days a year, and our dignity is affronted when we are given anything less. That is true for everyone. And it's no small occurrence that we are meeting again in person rather than merely online. That alone will make it a meaningful, dynamic, and celebratory event.

We are looking forward to it, and also to the much-needed work ahead. Recently the Taskforce has been examining the conclusions made in “From Lament to Action: the Archbishops' Anti-Racism Task Force Report” from across the pond as summarized by Fr. Jonathan Jong. It calls for better data collection, increased representation, more training and education, and new posts and organizations (for example, a full-time Racial Justice Officer for every diocese). Says Fr. Jong: “The recommendations in the report are to be interpreted in terms of repentance and mission, and not dismissed as moves toward, say, diversity for diversity's sake. We could argue over whether Christians should care about ethnic diversity for it's own sake, but fortunately, we don't have to today.”

After reading the summary, the Rev. Christopher Belle remarked: “I am particularly encouraged by the scope of the research. The onus is placed on the Diocese, the parish, the seminary...to pay attention to who they hire/admit. The need to renew hiring/admission practices is plain. It is clear action has to be taken.”

And the Rev. James Pratt: “I was particularly taken by the idea of an advisory committee on appointments charged with identifying candidates from minority groups for open positions and inviting them to apply. I am thinking how, in our proposed revisions to the canon on election of a bishop, we charge the search committee to seek out diverse candidates. But what if we had a network that already has an idea of possible candidates and could encourage them to stand?”

The Rev. Deborah Meister: “That's an amazing idea. The advising committee could also work with our parishes, helping their search committee to acknowledge and examine any biases which appear during the search, and perhaps open more positions to 'non-traditional' applications of various sorts.”

I am mulling over this exchange, and the whole report, our mission, and everything we face ahead in my mind. I imagine the ghosts of the past who were at that historic funeral, and those not invited, overhearing our conversations. I listen to the traffic on Saint Catherine Street and wonder what it will sound like in a hundred years, if we are still here. I look at the spire, and what it represents, and think of it emerging fresh and new from its scaffolding cocoon. I look at The Bay and think of the past, even before Davis lived there, to the time of the First Nations, when the land was pristine, and also the present, and the people without homes camping alongside the glamorous store window advertisements, blowing warm air onto their freezing hands, and of the huge skyscraper that will loom over it and overshadow our spire in the near future. The past, present, and future are communing. And they are all merging together to demand a single question. Who are we?

Meet the Speaker for Black Heritage Celebration: Pat Dillon-Moore / Actress, Broadcaster, Publicist

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Meet the Speaker for Black Heritage Month Celebration Célébration du mois du patrimoine noir

Pat Dillon-Moore / Actress, Broadcaster, Publicist

Pat Dillon-Moore has led one of the most interesting professional lives this side of the Atlantic. Diversely experienced, with a repertoire of skills that includes writing, performance, and as a beloved emcee of cultural events.

Pat Dillon-Moore is a shining example of passion, prowess and personality. She has carried a film (1986) Sitting in Limbo, directed by John N. Smith); racked up notable theatre credits through the Black Theatre Workshop; founded a company (Black Arts Production); co-founded another (Amanda Jackson Communications); written and acted out a humorous and satirical Jamaican monologue series (Clemmie Is Mi Frien); and, in 1990, was appointed as a radio station manager of CKUT 90.3, the first Black woman to do so in Quebec.

For 25 years in her long-held position as a publicist for the National Film Board of Canada, she has inspired a great deal of admiration, and has even been hailed as one of the geniuses in the field by esteemed writer Christopher Moore. For the last 30 years, Pat has been a Montreal broadcaster on the FM band. She currently produces of a Black ‎magazine and music format weekly show, Bhum Bhum Tyme.

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