She acknowledged that 2023 was a particularly difficult year for many in Canada and around the globe—as people faced lingering concerns about COVID, the worst wildfire season on record in Canada, earthquakes in Turkey, Syria and Japan, and wars around the globe including in Ukraine, Armenia and Israel-Gaza.

Surveying the inequities, injustices, fear, oppression and suffering flourishing, looking ahead into 2024 with hope is a challenge, she said.

Canadians cannot simply just blinker themselves from the suffering elsewhere, Nicholls said. “We live in a global community where a small event in one part of the world is known instantly and ripples through economic and social relationships….What happens to our neighbours—wherever they are in this world—happens to us.”

“The weight of the darkness in our world seems stronger this year. Maybe more so because we believe that human beings are both called and capable of living differently,” she said.

The archbishop spoke of her horror watching the unfolding violence in the Holy Land in places she had visited twice in the past year, including “the bombing of the Al Ahli Anglican hospital, the utter decimation of Gaza and contemplated the bottomless pit of grief for the Jewish community on Oct. 7, reopening the wounds of centuries of antisemitism. I have also heard the calls of Christian leaders in the land of the Holy One and around the world crying out for an end to the violence. … Archbishop Hosam [Naoum of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem] joined the other patriarchs and religious leaders in calling for peace. “As custodians of the Christian faith, deeply rooted in the Holy Land, we stand in solidarity with the people of this region, who are enduring the devastating consequences of continued strife. Our faith, which is founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ, compels us to advocate for the cessation of all violent and military activities that bring harm to both Palestinian and Israeli civilians.”

Christians, she said, “live by a faith rooted in an understanding of being human in relationship with God that offers another way….To some it seems like a naïve way—even simplistic—yet it is rooted in a wisdom stronger than death. It begins in the love of the Creator for all humankind in its fullness. …This love is not naïve about human nature, for God faced the depth of human capacity for cruelty in the death of Jesus—and “did not strike back but overcame hatred with love” (to quote one of our eucharistic prayers). God offers us a path through the darkness of human betrayal and sin—our own and others’—and offers life again and again and again.”

“That,” Nicholls said, “is how we face a new year. Not in denial of the pain and suffering—but in the knowledge that even the deepest darkness of human evil cannot overcome the love of God.”

The archbishop said she finds hope in small gestures of human kindness and sacrifice, “Jesus and all who follow him give the world signs that another way is possible.” She added that one of the gifts of being the primate is the opportunity to travel and see the ways Anglicans are bringing hope.

The examples she offered included a Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund project in Kenya that helps build shallow wells in a drought-stricken region that give those nearby cleaner water for their farms, animals and homes; supports training and microloans for small dairy farmers…and helps provide funds for children to go to school.

In Canada, she met lay Anglicans sustaining worship and outreach through food banks, soup kitchens and community ministries in the dioceses of Yukon and Caledonia.

As we enter this new year of 2024, Nicholls said, “let us hold firm to the hope of the gospel with faith and trust God’s infinite love and mercy and—like Mary—respond with a continuing ‘yes’ to God’s call.”

She concluded with the blessing:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.

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What captures our attention is the stone church in the foreground. This building was put up by Christ’s Church in 1860 as the parish schoolhouse and to serve as a chapel of ease for Anglicans in Lower Town who might otherwise be put off travelling some distance to attend the parish church at the western end of Sparks Street. It is difficult not to see this building as a transparent attempt by Christ’s Church to keep the city as one large Anglican parish, and to prevent any number of city churches emerging as separate parishes. What a hope.

The Chapel of Ease as it widely came to be known also was referred to as the Bishop’s Chapel when Bishop John Travers Lewis and his family came to Ottawa to reside, as Ottawa he found, for a time, to be more congenial than his see city of Kingston. Given the acute clergy shortage at the time, Lewis acted as Incumbent in this house of worship, which increasingly came to regard itself as a parish church quite separate from the Christ’s Church congregation.

From the perspective of Christ’s Church, it was frustrating to have the Bishop acting as rector of the parish’s chapel of ease, but it was even more embarrassing to read in the public prints that the architecture of the Chapel of Ease was considered by arbiters of taste as more advanced than that of the older parish church on Sparks Street.

Not advanced enough for Bishop Lewis, apparently. He had dreams of tearing down this house of worship and building a national cathedral on this site, just down the street, so to speak, from the spires of Parliament Hill. As the people attending worship here struggled into existence as the Parish of Saint John the Evangelist, there was the embarrassing scenario of Christ’s Church, Saint John the Evangelist, the new Saint Alban’s Church in Sandy Hill and Bishop Lewis all squabbling to claim a share of the value of this property.

That was all ahead in the future. In the 1860s, the Chapel of Ease was regarded as the foremost example of ecclesiastical architecture in Ottawa. As the major concentration of Ottawa inhabitants resided in the Lower Town, it is hardly surprising that ere another twenty years passed, an even more ambitious Gothic Revival wing was built extending from the south wall of this house of worship.

Surviving photographs show that interior arrangements were unusual. In contrast to what one might expect in an advanced example of Gothic Revival design, old photographs show that the altar was not located in the east end, but rather in a small transept on the north wall opposite the one we see here midway along the south wall. Unlike Roman Catholics in the pews of Notre Dame and people at Saint Alban’s and Saint Bartholomew’s who faced east during worship, Anglicans in the chapel of ease faced north, whereas members of Christ’s Church uptown faced south. We note a modest entrance into the church upstairs near the north end of the west wall, but very likely there were other entrances as well.

 If you would like to help the Archives preserve the records of the Diocese and its parishes, why not become a Friend of the Archives?  Your $20 membership brings you three issues of the lively, informative Newsletter, and you will receive a tax receipt for further donations above that amount.

Diocesan Archives 51 O4 11

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In her remarks, the Rev. Mary-Cate Garden said that in her reading of a parish history published for its 150th anniversary, she learned that the deed for the building was signed in November 1838. The land for the church was given by John Cavanaugh.

Remarkably, the church survived the Great Fire of 1870, although the rectory, fence and a nearby schoolhouse were all destroyed.

But Garden said, most of the parishioners already know the church’s history. “You know it so well in the way that longtime parishioners of any church know the history. You know it in a deep way, a way that comes out of your own family histories. A lived way. A way that is deeply embedded in the land; in the community; in all that is this place and all your places. Something that we don’t see that often anymore, something that is quite amazing,” she said.

Indeed, some of the parishioners are descendants of the original parishioners. Suzanne Thompson told Crosstalk that she is a descendent of two families in the church’s early history. She is in the fifth generation of the Cox family to attend the church and in the sixth generation of the Wilson family. The Cox family came to the area from Limerick County in Ireland in 1848, and the Wilsons from Fermanagh County in 1819. Members of both families are buried in the church cemetery, so when Thompson comes to Christ Church, she is literally surrounded by her ancestors. It adds more meaning to her work as the secretary treasurer of the Christ Church Cemetery Board.

Her own history is closely tied to the church too. She was baptized, confirmed and married there, as were her two children. “It’s a very important part of my life,” she says.

Margie Cox entered into the church’s history when she married Suzanne’s brother, and the church has been an important part of their lives and family as well. “We were both confirmed and baptized there, we were married there. Our daughter was baptized and confirmed there as well,” she says.

Cox says the building itself feels a bit like family. “It’s lovely. You go inside the church, and you just get this feeling of comfort.” It still has the original pews, altar and wood carvings, she said.

Christ Church is part of an unusual parish that has three church buildings, but functions happily as one congregation. “We share services and go back and forth from one church to the other,” Cox explains. St. John’s and Christ Church alternate Sundays until Christmas, she said.. “We both have a 9 o’clock service, and then St. James is always at 10.30 am.”

The parish keeps up involvement in the community. This Advent they hosted a fun day that included a living nativity scene.

At Christ Church the saints of times past had a vision…, Garden said at the anniversary service, “even when they were newly arrived, even when there were fields to plough, houses and barns to build. And it was a vision and a care that has continued down to this very day by our living saints. To the care with which the building is tended, to the memorials and windows and goods that have been so generously offered. It’s seen in the people who tend the altar, the cemetery, who greet visitors, shovel snow, fix signs and more. It’s seen in the welcome that comes from a joy of being together in this place.”

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Some faithful Anglicans fail to understand that church records still matter long after a parish closes its doors. For instance, architectural plans, building specifications and insurance policies may be sought out by the group taking over a secularized church.

Many years after a church has closed, people (and even their descendants) will still need to obtain certificates of their birth/baptism, confirmation, marriage and burial to prove they existed, or that they can claim Indigenous status, or that their name changed at some point in the past—as, for example, when they married. And there are other reasons these records are sought out.

From when the first Anglican clergy began ministering in the territory we today call the Diocese of Ottawa 236 years ago, a consistent priority has been to create, maintain and preserve parish registers containing all Anglican births, baptisms, confirmations, marriages and burials. That has been done despite families moving in, moving away, and despite small churches opening, proliferating and closing over the centuries.

Parish registers are especially crucial documents in the Deanery of West Quebec, since up until 29 years ago there was no civil registration in the province of Québec: hence parish registers for many in that province are the only proof of birth, marriage, death and name change.

In Ontario, by contrast, there has been civil registration since 1869, which means that all people alive today who were born, married and died in Ontario should be covered in the vast record-keeping system of that province. Proof of baptism can make the difference in whether or not a child is accepted as a student at a Roman Catholic separate school in Ontario. Such proof can only be found in a parish register.

To address the challenge of keeping track of all births, baptisms, marriages and burials recorded in its parish registers, the Diocesan Archives over the past 33 years has been building a database listing baptisms, marriages and burials, to locate names quickly—thereby reducing wear and tear on parish registers, archivists, and on researchers themselves. As the number of parish registers grows (the 1056th was tallied in November 2023), we care that parish registers out in parishes risk being destroyed, even stolen.

At this point I can imagine some readers saying to themselves, “Surely this can’t be!  No one would ever steal a parish register, let alone destroy one!  The Registrar must be exaggerating!”

So you might think. But it is only a few years ago that thieves broke into Saint Mary’s Church, Navan, and removed a portable safe. They probably hoped it contained money when they returned to their lair. Instead, what they found were the current parish registers in use at Navan—ostensibly placed there to protect them in case of fire. Despite the parish giving out notice on the CBC and in the Ottawa Sun in hopes of getting these registers returned to the parish, they never reappeared—thereby inflicting a major gap in the record of baptisms, marriages and burials for that parish.

But the road to destroying parish registers can also be paved with the very best of intentions. Witness the occasion when a priest serving a parish of the Diocese became ill, and their family rallied around to provide support. Their care included a general cleanup of the rectory, including tossing the current parish registers into a dumpster—thereby erasing 10 years of baptisms, confirmations, marriages and burials at one fell swoop—a record available nowhere else and now rotting in some unspecified landfill.

In response to such situations, in an attempt to prevent further such losses, the Diocesan Archives has adopted a policy of going out to parishes every few years to photocopy parish registers still in use in churches. It does so in an effort to prevent vital information being lost.  Once the original parish register finally is deposited in the Diocesan Archives (where a Canon of General Synod stipulates it MUST be deposited once the register is full, or a church closed) they cease to be the responsibility of clergy, and become the responsibility of the Diocesan Registrar.

One last point. It is Archives policy NOT to make these records available to commercial agencies such as ancestry.ca. Why? Recent parish registers contain confidential information, which potentially could lead to a parish (or even the Diocese) being sued should such information be made public. Parish registers are records that belong to the Church and are the responsibility of the Church to maintain. The maintenance of and access to these parish registers is the responsibility of the Church alone. Only the Church determines who has access to them, hence it alone receives payment for issuing certificates to the individuals concerned.  In a word, the Church is responsible for how parish registers are used.

This article was originally part of the Archives full report to Synod 2023.

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Every so often I like to go on a walk throughout downtown Ottawa. I leave my office at Ascension House, passing the Refugee Ministry Office on the way out the door, and I hit the streets. I take a rather circuitous route, so I can pass various sites of our Anglican Community Ministries—Belong Ottawa at Centre 454, The Well, and St Luke’s Table; Cornerstone Housing for Women at their shelter, at their supportive housing locations on MacLaren, at MacPhail House, and Booth Street, and The Ottawa Pastoral Counselling Centre at the Bronson Centre. It is striking over the past few years that almost every block on the way has evidence of homelessness and poverty. People hanging out on the streets, sleeping, openly using drugs, and many encampments. Two years ago, it was like nothing like I had ever seen – I could not imagine it getting worse. Sadly, today it is.

This of course is not only a downtown Ottawa issue by any means. In the city of Cornwall, there are at least three large encampments including a conservative estimate of 120 people sleeping in tents and under tarps. A number of our parishes in villages, towns, suburbs can bear witness to folks setting up camp on church properties. For example, at St. James Morrisburg this summer, a few people camped on church property, others lived out of their cars, still others are sheltered in local motels, paid for by the municipal government at a cost of $5000 a month.

Underpasses, parks, walkways, doorways, increasingly more and more people have fallen into desperate situations and find themselves without homes, without permanent, safe, affordable housing.

Martine Dore, director of program and services at Cornerstone, says, “This is the most challenging time Cornerstone has ever experienced.” Martine wrote the following note to me in October: “We have heard of the secondary pandemics, following COVID 19, of mental health and substance use impacting the general population, of the increased depression, isolation, anxiety and a decrease in a self of connectedness and wellbeing. These subsequent effects of a health pandemic have hit the most vulnerable population even more profoundly. Those who already struggled with mental unwellness, poverty, and addiction have been pushed even more to the fringes of society.”

This summer people arrived in Canada as asylum seekers and found themselves without resources or places to stay. In Ottawa, the number of newcomers seeking shelter has increased by 165 percent. Still, the first inhabitants of this land, Indigenous Canadians, are disproportionately represented amongst the people on the street and in shelter.

For the first time, there is not enough shelter space to accommodate everyone looking for a bed or a mat to lay their head. Municipalities struggle to manage the influx of vulnerable people, shelters, and social service agencies, including our own Community Ministries, are overwhelmed.

The incidence of drug overdoses is on an exponential rise as toxic, deadly drugs are hitting the streets. People are dying. We are struggling to keep people alive for just another day. In Vanier, people sleep on the ground of St Margaret’s each night. The Rev. Colin McFarland checks in the morning to ensure that are alive. Sadly, with such nasty and toxic drugs comes very difficult behaviour. Neighbors are nervous, often frightened and upset. It’s understandable—though some make it clear that services provided by agencies such as our Community Ministries should move or just close down, thinking that will solve the immediate problem. It won’t. It will make this worse.

Cornerstone has a policy with procedures to follow in the event of a serious occurrence—a situation involving such things as an assault on staff or other residents, an overdose, the death of a resident or a fire. In the six years prior to this one, beginning in 2017, Cornerstone reported a combined total of 11 serious occurrences, that’s about two a year. So far in 2023, there have been 12. Our staff at Belong Ottawa Centre 454 administer naloxone on a near daily basis to people who have overdosed, saving lives. Parishioners at St Albans on the same site as Centre 454, have administered naloxone to people outside the church door on Sunday mornings. Our small but remarkable staff at Centre 105 in Cornwall, with many volunteers, served 6,000 meals in 2019. This year, it will be over 22,000. Our staff are on the frontline of a challenging, traumatic and dispiriting crisis.

“…We are called to the greater community,

to collaboration and partnership,

confident the Spirit moves in our midst.”

I regret that I describe a situation that seems to have no end. As Mike, a participant of Centre 105 has said, “The past five years have only gotten harder. I can only imagine what it will look like in the next five years.”

The opioid crisis, the homelessness crisis, the number of souls living precariously on the streets or in shelters, or in horrible rooming houses is not by any means abating. Neighbours are frustrated, staff are stressed, organizations are stretched to capacity, leaders are seemingly confounded at the extent of the problem, and thousands of people are living desperate, risk-laden lives.

You might ask “What is being done?”

I can speak to what we are doing in our Community Ministries and in some areas of our diocese. First and foremost, we continue to serve those who are most vulnerable in our midst who often struggle with many issues at one time—poverty, homelessness, addiction, mental illness, and life altering trauma.

We take seriously the well-being of our staff. We seek to provide them with support and opportunities for professional development. We invite feedback and seek to create teams of mutual support. The Ottawa Pastoral Counselling Centre provides counselling to any staff who seek it and is working to support Belong Ottawa in staff support groups and critical incident debriefing.

Collaboration—always critical in this work—is all the more so at this time. Centre 105 partners with a Recovery Care Mobile Clinic, which visits each week with a nurse and addiction counsellor, and also partners with the Eastern Ontario Health Unit with a focus on harm reduction.

In talking to the Rev. Nick Forte of the Parish of the Valley, I learned that in the city of Pembroke where visible homelessness in on the rise, our Lutheran partners are hoping to open their church as a warming centre this winter. We Anglicans, Nick says, are looking to support this initiative.

In Ottawa, in areas of high density where street involvement is highly intensified, we are members of Community Liaison Committees. In the Sandy Hill neighborhood, where Belong Ottawa at Centre 454 and the parish of St Albans are located, Rachel Robinson, executive director of Belong Ottawa, and the Rev. Michael Garner, incumbent of St Albans, are working with other agencies, city staff, and neighbors. This is replicated in Somerset West where Belong Ottawa at St Luke’s Table and Cornerstone are at the table with neighbours, partner agencies and city representatives. In Centretown, St. John the Evangelist with the Rev. Canon Gary van der Meer and Belong will collaborate in engaging local merchants.

Our Diocese is building affordable housing. For example, Ellwood House on the campus of St Thomas the Apostle in Alta Vista, Hollyer House at Christ Church Bells Corners, and Cornerstone are engaged in the construction of new affordable housing, which will result in 115 homes for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness. In Smiths Falls, St John’s is a major contributor to an affordable housing project.

And there is advocacy, articulating to elected officials the need for systemic change, additional resources and political will. Our Community Ministries (and through them, our Diocese) are active members of the Alliance to End Homelessness. What we learn through our work with the alliance and similar coalitions is that there are ample solutions to address homelessness and poverty—solutions that are rooted in compassion, analysis, and that make good economic sense.

Homelessness is a failure of public policy, and we need to advocate this in no uncertain terms.

And as we advocate for major systemic change, which will take time, we are in conversations now with municipal officials regarding the looming winter season with its increased threat to people’s lives.

You may ask, ‘What can I do? What can we do?’ The answer to this question depends on so many things: where you live, where your parish church is located, what’s happening in your neighborhood. Staff and volunteers of our Community Ministries would say, learn as much as you can about the problem: identify the groups and individuals, agencies, other churches and faith groups engaged in this issue. Go for a walk and observe. If you are a person who likes data, there is lots of it out there. If you are drawn to direct service, volunteer. Continue to be generous, gifts are received with gratitude and provide relief. Talk to elected officials and candidates during elections. So many of us are already doing all of the above and so much more. For parishes, this crisis squarely falls within the framework of contextual mission.

In the broadest and most profound sense, the answer to the question of ‘What can we do?” is be ambassadors. St Paul wrote to the small church in Corinth: “We are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.” Those words roll down through the ages. We are ambassadors for Christ, God is making God appeal through us. And as we know in this day, not only through us—the Spirit is at work in so many places—in our communities and neighborhoods, in our partner agencies, in the many faith groups with whom we walk, in the voices of those who suffer, the Spirit is present. So, we are called to the greater community, to collaboration and partnership, confident the Spirit moves in our midst.

In the gospel on Thursday evening, from Luke’s gospel, Jesus —once a refugee, often homeless, reliant on others, often in trouble with the authorities—returned home to Nazareth and in the synagogue read from the prophet Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, anointed me to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” Soon after he spoke these words Jesus would be rejected by his neighbours.

Scripture contains passage after passage that attests God’s care for those who suffer, for those most vulnerable, on the margins, unwell, living in poverty. God’s love is for all and is found in all. As ambassadors for Christ, let that be our message.

The situation I describe today can be overwhelming—it can be hard to be optimistic. Yet, as disciples of Jesus, ambassadors for Christ we are bound by hope. So, what can we do, let us together, live into the fulfillment of our hope.

The post The state of the streets appeared first on Perspective.

Sheila Dunlop and CCBC’s Altar Guild welcomed everyone with coffee, tea, and muffins before a worship service.

Bishop Shane Parker led the Holy Eucharist and was assisted by Rev. Margo Whittaker. Kellina Gehrels provided the music for the service.

Bishop Shane’s homily spoke of St. Teresa of Ávila. He said she had a wild youth, entered a monastery and prayed for a religious experience which she received! She underwent a transverberation of the heart (a mystical grace wherein a Saint’s heart was pierced with a “dart of love” by an angel) and became filled with love for God. She went on to be a spiritual leader and reformer. He further spoke about Elijah when he was hiding and in fear for his life. God was sad and alone and was told to wait for the passing of the Lord … He was not in the wind, earthquake or fire but in the silence. Bishop Shane observed that our altar guilds work alone in the silence, as it is a time of prayer, and find great joy in the silence.

A short business meeting was held after the service. Debbie Tweedle advised the group that in the future priestly vestments collected at Diocesan Altar Guild annual general meetings will be delivered to and stored at the Cathedral. The Ven. Linda Hill will coordinate the distribution of items to diocesan deacons and priests. Altar supplies can continue to be brought to the AGM for members to take back to their parishes. Sandra Clark, the guild treasurer, presented her report and asked for suggestions for the free will offering. The Altar Guild members voted to donate the monies to the Family Service Association of Churches.

Guest speaker Archdeacon Kathryn Otley provided a wonderful presentation called Sacred Sanctuaries in the Holy Land using pictures from her pilgrimage with the bishop and others to the Holy Land.

We look forward to getting together again in 2024 when St. Clare, Winchester will be our host.

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The clergy already had ample evidence that people in the parish and the wider community love sacred choral music. An advertised performance by a visiting choir from Christ’s College, Cambridge in July had phones at the church ringing non-stop, and it was a packed house for on the concert on that hot summer evening.

And when Calkin offered Nov. 11 as one of the possible dates, the Rev. Gillian Hoyer recounted: “We thought what better way to mark Remembrance Day in a military community than to offer this Requiem for All Souls with the music of Fauré’s Requiem sung by the combined cathedral choirs?”

Much planning and rehearsing later, the combined choir arrived in Pembroke on Nov. 11, including members from the girls and boys choirs, mens’ choir and the lay clerks. Hoyer estimated there were 35 to 40 altogether.

Remembrance Day services are always important services at Holy Trinity because of Pembroke’s deep connection with the military. “Many of our parishioners are veterans or are active members of the military… and right now our curate in the parish, the Reverend Claire Bramma, is in her two-year civilian posting before becoming a military chaplain herself,” said Hoyer.

More than $1,300 in donations were collected for Wounded Warriors Service Dogs. “We know that there are a lot of veterans in our communities who have been beneficiaries of that organization, and in the absence of a specifically local veterans’ charity, we wanted a veterans charity that has a local connection,” Hoyer explained.

The service was very well attended, and Hoyer said many parishioners said how moved they were to hear the music in a service as Faure intended.

Parishioner Lesley Lancaster wrote to thank the clergy for making the special service possible. “The level of musicianship totally blew us away and to be so close to the singers was a real joy. I have sung this requiem in the past and heard it in concert. Some movements were sung at my father-in-law’s funeral in 2001 by his church choir in England…but I have never heard it before as part of a full Requiem Mass and found it very moving.”

The Holy Trinity Anglican Church Women group went all out preparing a ham and turkey supper as thank you to the choirs before they travelled back to Ottawa.

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The Anglican Diocese of Ottawa and its parishes have provided support to help do that in various ways. And the parish of St. Barnabas, which is also located in downtown Ottawa, has played a key role by welcoming their neighbours into their space.

After the fire, St. Luke’s Table quickly relocated to the Bronson Centre and continues to operate from that location while St. Luke’s is being renovated and restored, but Belong Ottawa is only able to use the space on weekdays. Last winter, when the program received some additional funding to open on Saturdays, the Rev. Canon Stewart Murray, Incumbent at St. Barnabas invited them to use the parish hall. With that funding renewed this winter, they will again be able to open on Saturdays at St. Barnabas.

Murray told Crosstalk that St. Barnabas is very happy to host St. Luke’s. As a parish in the downtown core, he and parishioners witness the growing need for the services the community ministries offer to help people struggling with issues such as poverty and addiction. He says he has occasionally had to call the police or ambulance when he couldn’t rouse someone sleeping near the church. “I think at least they can get connected to services through St. Luke’s. They can come and they know it’s there.” It’s good to feel like St. Barnabas can be part of offering help beyond providing for immediate or basic needs, he said. The hall was built in the 1990s so it is up-to-code and accessible.

Robinson said that Belong Ottawa does provide a meal to the people who come to St. Barnabas on Saturdays, but staff have observed that what people are most hungry for is social connection. “They’ve probably all got some sort of housing like a rooming house or supportive housing or their own apartment,” she said. “It’s really about loneliness and breaking isolation….

That’s what Belong Ottawa does, as much as anything, and I always say it’s almost as important as anything….. Because we know loneliness is really bad for health.” She and the staff have always known that intuitively, she added, but noted that post-pandemic there is much more research that backs that up.

St. Barnabas also hosted women from Belong Ottawa’s The Well last winter for two afternoons a week when they were displaced during post-flooding repairs at St. John the Evangelist. “They were really kind and generous to us at St Barnabas because they opened up to us and said that we could offer the women-only programming during the week while we were displaced from The Well,” said Robinson.

This winter, St. Barnabas will be helping another Anglican Community Ministry, Cornerstone Housing for Women. The parish will be hosting women from Cornerstone’s nearby MacLaren Street residence two afternoons a week while that building is undergoing renovations to address a mould problem.

Martine Dore, Cornerstone’s director of programs and services, said that the first part of the renovation required closing down the community room and kitchen at MacLaren. “It’s the only place in the building where women can gather as a group to eat together, to cook together, to play bingo, to have fun, to have conversation. For many of the women, they don’t have a TV in their room, so that’s where they come and watch TV with their housemates.”

St. Barnabas is just down the street, so they reached out to ask if they might be able to rent some space where the women could come together, have tea, celebrate community, play games…” St. Barnabas invited them to come to the church to discuss the possibility with Canon Murray. Dore and the manager of MacLaren went not knowing that they would arrive at the end of a mass and the usual a teatime that follows. “They invited us in and they were the most welcoming group of people. It made us feel so comfortable and confident that we’d made the right decision.”

The women from the MacLaren residence have started meeting at St. Barnabas two afternoons a week. “We have the space for a couple hours and our residents come down and it’s wonderful. … One day our wires got crossed and we ended up coming with some of our residents at another one of St. Barnabas’ teatimes. And the residents had the exact same experience Alison and I did, where they were welcomed into the community to have tea, goodies, and it was just such a wonderful experience for us all.”

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The idea for this project began at Synod in 2022 when Bishop Shane Parker introduced those gathered to a global initiative from the Anglican Communion in response to the climate change crisis. The Communion Forest is intended as “a practical, spiritual, and symbolic response to the environmental crisis, and an act of Christian hope for the well-being of humanity and all God’s creation.” It encourages Anglicans across the world to plant trees and engage in forestation in ways that are appropriate to their own local context.

Archdeacon Patrick Stephens, chair of the diocesan PWRDF Working Group, told Crosstalk that it also happened that Josephine Kizza, executive director of longtime PWRDF partner St. Jude Family Projects was in Ottawa, met with the working group and attended a part of Synod. Part of the St. Jude work involves “planting trees, native species, sometimes fruit bearing trees, but sometimes trees that are for various reasons beneficial to the soil and the natural environment,” Stephens told Crosstalk. “We were really impressed and also affected by her story and the work that she does and the people she works with. And so we wanted to support that initiative and we decided that we also wanted to participate in the Communion Forest Initiative.”

Stephens suggested combining the local and international efforts, and the working group envisioned planting trees both here in the diocese and donating funds to St. Jude’s to plant trees in Uganda. They wanted to buy 500 seedlings for people across the diocese to plant as a part of the Branches of Hope project. They were just missing one vital ingredient — the money to buy the trees.

When she heard about their idea, Dean Beth Bretzlaff brought that obstacle to the parish council of Christ Church Cathedral, where the parish is enthusiastic about planting trees but short on space to plant until a project to improve its Queen Street entrance is completed. The council quickly and unanimously agreed to donate the $3,000 required to buy the trees to PWRDF to help other parishes, groups or individuals plant trees this spring.

“Everyone was supportive and thought it was a great idea,” Vicar’s Warden Catherine Morris told Crosstalk, adding that the Cathedral serves everyone in the diocese and the parish likes to strengthen connections to other parishes.

Morris thought of another way for the project to grow once the space at the Cathedral’s Queen Street entrance is ready for planting the microforest project they have in mind. “I thought it wouldn’t be neat, since … we’re everyone’s Cathedral if different churches could donate money and then put a tree in or a plant in, she explained. “When the time comes, we’ll invite other churches within the diocese to plant a tree. Then they can say this is St. Matthew’s tree, or this is the shrubbery of St. Aidan’s.”

The Cathedral’s project will focus on parishes, but Stephens underlined that the broader Branches of Hope project isn’t just for parishes. Any individual or group can plant a tree or trees. “We’re asking people to sign up at their local parish. They can ask their priest or ask me.” [Please email thereverendpatrickstephens@gmail.com or call 613-870-1440] The Working Group would like to have the list of names by Feb. 1, 2023, so that they can order the trees and distribute them in the spring.

Branches of Hope now has its own landing page on the PWRDF website. Now that the Cathedral has paid for the trees to be planted here in the diocese, donations can all go to planting trees in Uganda. The goal is to raise $5,000, so at least 500 trees can be planted there. You can also read more about Josephine Kizza’s work in Uganda.

Stephens said that the diocesan group will be in touch with the office overseeing the international Communion Forest initiative. “There’s a global map, so, we’ll have Ottawa on the map.”

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