Saint Bridget's Church - Shubenacadie

12/21/2024

03/26/2021

11/26/2020

Due to the recent outbreaks of Covid-19 and rising safety concerns of the faithful, the Pastor with the Leadership team of the Immaculate Conception Parish have decide to suspend mass for the next two weekends for the safety of our community. This cancellation also includes the St Bridget’s Church community.
We will update everyone on December 9th.

669 Prince Street, Truro, NS B2N 1G5 •

P.O. Box 25050 Truro, NS, B2N 7B8

08/09/2020

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus rescues Peter and says: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” When we live wrapped up around our own egos and their fears, we inhabit the narrow space of the pusilla anima (the little soul), but when we forget our awful seriousness, when we live in a risky freedom, we inhabit the infinite expanse of the magna anima (the great soul).

Holy people are those who realize that they participate in something and Someone infinitely greater than themselves. Far from crushing them, this awareness makes them great. In a hundred ways, our theological and spiritual tradition attempts to cultivate the great soul, to lure us into that wonderful conviction that it is not about us.

John’s Gospel says that in his youth, Peter labored under the illusion that he could control his life: he walked where he liked and he tied his own belt. But in his old age—the time of wisdom—he will realize that his life has been under the direction of a Power that his ego cannot begin to manipulate. In taking him where he does not want to go, this Power will introduce him to the magna anima.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080920.cfm

07/19/2020

Good morning!

Friends, today’s Gospel features one of Jesus’ most beloved parables: that of the mustard seed. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.”

How does God tend to work? What does the building up of the kingdom typically look like? From the very small to the very great—and by a slow, gradual process. God tends to operate under the radar, on the edges of things, quietly, clandestinely, not drawing attention to himself.

In the City of God, St. Augustine opined that the Church is like Noah’s ark, a small ship bouncing on the rough seas of history. As the great empires come and go, as the waves of history crash noisily against the shore, God’s kingdom is quietly advancing, unnoticed but inevitable.

One of my very favorite images from C.S. Lewis speaks to this principle. How, he asks, did God enter history? Quietly, in a forgotten corner of the Roman Empire—sneaking, as it were, behind enemy lines.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071920.cfm

07/10/2020

This week's bulletin.

07/03/2020

Good morning!!

Friends, today’s Gospel tells of Thomas’s doubting the Resurrection. Indeed, Catholicism has a rich tradition of questioning, seeking understanding. Aquinas, another great St. Thomas, spent much of his life asking and answering hard questions about the faith.

Do you remember Hamlet’s great line, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio”? If we stubbornly say—even in the area of science—that we will accept only what we can clearly see and touch and control, we wouldn’t know much about reality.

There is, in most areas of life, a play between knowing and believing. It is not unique to the religious sphere of life. Blaise Pascal summed it up: “The heart has its reasons that reason knows not.”

It is not that we who have not seen and have believed are settling for a poor substitute for vision. No, we are being described as blessed, more blessed than Thomas. God is doing all sorts of things that we cannot see, measure, control, fully understand. But it is an informed faith that allows one to fall in love with such a God.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070320.cfm