Archbishop Shane Parker offered the homily at a worship service at Christ Church Cathedral Ottawa on Jan. 1, 2026, maintaining a longstanding tradition of the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada beginning each new year by addressing the whole church from the Cathedral in the nation’s capital.
There was a particularly warm welcome as a homecoming for the archbishop who had served as a priest of the diocese, dean of the Cathedral for 25 years and as the 10th bishop of Ottawa for the past five years until he was elected Primate in June of 2025.
After congratulating the Cathedral girls’ choir on their 25th anniversary, Archbishop Parker began by noting that the first place he travelled after being elected was to Calgary to attend the Sacred Circle, the national gathering of Indigenous Anglicans in Canada, in August 2025. The Indigenous Church is resurging, celebrating and being celebrated, he said. “Our Indigenous church is growing confident as Indigenous Anglicans with ancient roots and traditions on this land.”
He added: “In what could be described as kind of a cosmic irony, the Anglican Church of Canada, as distinct from the Indigenous Anglican Church that dwells within it,… over the last century or so, has gone from being in a central place of privilege in Canada to being on the margins.”
January 1 is the day when Christian churches celebrate the naming of Jesus. “What does it mean for us to lift up the name of Jesus from our place in the margins of Canadian society?” Parker asked. “What are we to make of the words from the ancient Christian hymn we heard read from Philippians? ‘In the name of Jesus, every knee should bend in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.’ It sounds like a call to Christian nationalism, which our church has recently and firmly denounced as a distortion of the gospel of Jesus and a threat to Canadian democracy. It sounds a lot like the place, the mindset, that the Anglican Church had when it first came to this land. Imperial, somewhat arrogant, privileged, and profoundly damaging to the spiritual traditions of the first people,” he said.
Instead, Parker explained, for the people, clergy, and bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada, “lifting up the name of Jesus means three things: communion with each other, communion with all humanity, and communion with the Creator of creation.
He elaborated: “Lifting up the name of Jesus means building up our parishes and congregations as well-run places of belonging, friendship, of lifelong relationships, intergenerational, diverse communities of worship, pastoral care, and service, communities that include all who seek relief from isolation and meaninglessness and loneliness, places of genuine concern and meaning…. Lifting up the name of Jesus also means selfless and courageous and steadfast acts of compassion, justice, advocacy, mercy, and peacemaking. It means building up our ministries and missions that serve the most vulnerable people, the oppressed, the victimized, wherever they are in this world. And critically, it means standing alongside every group or government, or person of goodwill who also seek to bring compassion, justice, mercy and peace to others. For us, the name of Jesus means deep communion with all human beings and with the earth itself.”
For Anglicans in Canada, Parker said, it also “means being a people of hope. Christ was born. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. We are a people who wait and live and serve in hope because we believe Christ Jesus is before, within, and after all time, all space, all things in heaven and earth. God is not finished yet.”
The archbishop offered this advice for living in that hope. “Be fully alive. Use your good gifts and resources fully and wisely. Build up, adjust, shape your parishes and congregations to be meaningful places of deep communion with one another. Courageously and selflessly join with other people of goodwill to serve those who live precariously. Be in deep communion with all humanity and lay claim to the hope that dwells within us and around us at all times.”
Following the service, everyone was invited to a festive reception in the Cathedral’s Great Hall:
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity annual service to be celebrated at Saint Paul University on Jan. 22