Out of the Cold

St. Patrick’s Church

By Sr. Susan Moran, O.L.M.
May/June 2011

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Last December St. Patrick’s Church, always a loving home to its Out of the Cold guests, hosted a Christmas party. The pastor, Redemptorist Father Gerald Fleming, and Mr. John Hamilton, Director of St. Patrick’s Out of the Cold, welcomed volunteers from St. Peter’s parish in Woodbridge who cooked the Christmas dinner and prepared more than 200 Christmas gifts.

Milton Cilcus and Amanda Inglis visit with Sr. Susan Moran at St. Patrick’s Out of the Cold.

It was a festive evening of love as Our Lady’s Missionaries Sister Christine Gebel and I celebrated with all who were present. Looking around at our sisters and brothers, I was very much aware of their hunger, loneliness, and lack of shelter, and knew with greater certainty that our country, Canada, has to be called to conversion in order to end hunger and homelessness. God desires this of us.

Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel Prize-winning author from Cairo, perceptively expressed the psychology of the young who are working for change in the Arab world: “Whenever someone is depressed, suffering or humiliated, he points to the mansion at the top of the alley at the end opening out to the desert, and says sadly, ‘That is our ancestor’s house, we are all his children, and we have a right to his property. Why are we starving? What have we done?’”

Our First Nations sisters and brothers could ask the same questions as they watch us prosper on their ancestral lands. As in Egypt, may there also be Canadians who will take a stand for the rights of all the people of our nation. We are not free until all have shelter and enough to eat.

St. Brigid’s Church

By Srs. Mary Hughes and Cecile Turner, O.L.M.
May/June 2011

Srs. Joan Missiaen, Susan Moran, Mary Hughes, and Cecile Turner (2nd from right) join other volunteers at St. Brigid’s Out of the Cold.

Having spent most of our lives outside of Canada, it was a shock to realize the plight of a great many of our sisters and brothers here in Canada. Going downtown, we see women and men during the cold winter months sitting on grates for warmth and reaching out for help.

And so, we accepted an invitation to volunteer at Out of the Cold and for the last three years, along with Sister Joan Missiaen, we have looked forward to going to St. Brigid’s Church on Monday afternoons.

Other volunteers from St. Brigid’s and other parishes help to prepare and serve the supper each week when usually more than 100 people come to eat. Blankets are provided for the 70 or so who stay overnight and a good breakfast awaits them in the morning.

We are blest to be with the volunteers and the many guests who come to St. Brigid’s.

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