st. jamestown
I live in the St. Jamestown area of Toronto. It is an old part of the city and parts of it have definitely seen better days.
The St. Jamestown complex just north of Wellesley E. and Sherbourne is home to many immigrant families living in highrises looming like forbidding towers in the sky. Violence threatens lives there and here and everywhere in Toronto these days. But for the most part, what I feel and see when I walk by and through this area are families. Not destitute families -- just families, making their way in a new world.
I think they are brave. I know how difficult it has been for me sometimes, and I am Canadian-born, and only a four hours' drive from my hometown. I think they are very brave.
On Tuesday, the day of my deceased mother's birthday, I felt a strong need to go to church. I was raised Catholic and lived Catholic, rather devoutly, until my late 20's. So, I am what may be called a 'lapsed Catholic'.
Though today my faith is undefined -- not non-existent -- just undefined, the rituals of Catholicism that I grew up with are a part of my past and self I cannot deny. I know any Catholic, especially one raised when the Church was still rich with Latin and archaics, knows what I mean. You step back into a church and everything comes back -- the smells, the deep echoes, the aura of quiet expectation, a sense of hope and a sense of refuge.
I wandered over to a church only a block away from where I live. It is a strange old church, looking like a pastiche of a small St. Paul's and an ancient Greek hall. It is easy to pass it by as it recedes from the sidewalk and the dirt of a scrappy Sherbourne Street. There are expensive condominiums being built next to it. Right now it is surrounded by construction and more dirt, but one day in the future it will be dwarfed even further by a soaring tower of glass, metal and stone.
Many churches are dying, but Our Lady of Lourdes on Sherbourne is very healthy indeed. Most churches lock their doors except for services, and many, because of the fear of fire, stopped having real candles years ago. As I open one of the heavy wood doors in the late morning, there is a man inside wiping down the brown tiled floor with a mop and water. Inside the church there are probably more than 10 people meditating and in prayer. Most of the people I see are south and southeast Asian -- the St. Jamestown 'demographic'. They have brought their deep faith with them to Canada and I realize it is the foundation of this community.
This church is alive like no other I have been in since my childhood. There are several altars in different corners and they are surrounded by lit candles. I find a large, new one in a blue stained glass and light it for my mother. Across the room, at another altar, a woman in a sari prostrates herself on the ground as she moves forward in prayer. It is also the Lenten season, the time of the Passion and of the Resurrection and the promise of new life.
I return later in the afternoon for a mass. Our Lady of Lourdes has three masses each day and up to seven on Sundays. Everything about the church and the service touches my soul and my heart in a way I find difficult to express. Several of the people around me are afflicted physically. Old women, probably alone, with walkers and wheelchairs sit near young and middleaged mothers seeking a spiritual strength between their work day and their return home to family. Young men participate, holding on to this lifeline that is keeping them from the street or the bottle. God is alive here.
Because spring is arriving and the weather welcoming, the streets are full of people moving about with pleasure and purpose. In the school fields of Jarvis Collegiate a pick-up cricket game is being played. It is played every day now since the weather has turned nice.
I don't understand cricket, nor why boys or anyone find it fun. It seems an interminable amount of standing around. In my hometown of Windsor, if you went to a specific park you could sometimes see the Caribbean teams in their dress-whites playing the game. Even more confusing is this habit of dressing all in white, which seems against all definitions of 'play' and 'fun'. The boys here are not dressed in white, and they are having fun playing cricket.
Confusion and mysteries (even small mysteries like cricket) are what life, and spring, are founded on. Thank the essence that is god.
The St. Jamestown complex just north of Wellesley E. and Sherbourne is home to many immigrant families living in highrises looming like forbidding towers in the sky. Violence threatens lives there and here and everywhere in Toronto these days. But for the most part, what I feel and see when I walk by and through this area are families. Not destitute families -- just families, making their way in a new world.
I think they are brave. I know how difficult it has been for me sometimes, and I am Canadian-born, and only a four hours' drive from my hometown. I think they are very brave.
On Tuesday, the day of my deceased mother's birthday, I felt a strong need to go to church. I was raised Catholic and lived Catholic, rather devoutly, until my late 20's. So, I am what may be called a 'lapsed Catholic'.
Though today my faith is undefined -- not non-existent -- just undefined, the rituals of Catholicism that I grew up with are a part of my past and self I cannot deny. I know any Catholic, especially one raised when the Church was still rich with Latin and archaics, knows what I mean. You step back into a church and everything comes back -- the smells, the deep echoes, the aura of quiet expectation, a sense of hope and a sense of refuge.
I wandered over to a church only a block away from where I live. It is a strange old church, looking like a pastiche of a small St. Paul's and an ancient Greek hall. It is easy to pass it by as it recedes from the sidewalk and the dirt of a scrappy Sherbourne Street. There are expensive condominiums being built next to it. Right now it is surrounded by construction and more dirt, but one day in the future it will be dwarfed even further by a soaring tower of glass, metal and stone.
Many churches are dying, but Our Lady of Lourdes on Sherbourne is very healthy indeed. Most churches lock their doors except for services, and many, because of the fear of fire, stopped having real candles years ago. As I open one of the heavy wood doors in the late morning, there is a man inside wiping down the brown tiled floor with a mop and water. Inside the church there are probably more than 10 people meditating and in prayer. Most of the people I see are south and southeast Asian -- the St. Jamestown 'demographic'. They have brought their deep faith with them to Canada and I realize it is the foundation of this community.
This church is alive like no other I have been in since my childhood. There are several altars in different corners and they are surrounded by lit candles. I find a large, new one in a blue stained glass and light it for my mother. Across the room, at another altar, a woman in a sari prostrates herself on the ground as she moves forward in prayer. It is also the Lenten season, the time of the Passion and of the Resurrection and the promise of new life.
I return later in the afternoon for a mass. Our Lady of Lourdes has three masses each day and up to seven on Sundays. Everything about the church and the service touches my soul and my heart in a way I find difficult to express. Several of the people around me are afflicted physically. Old women, probably alone, with walkers and wheelchairs sit near young and middleaged mothers seeking a spiritual strength between their work day and their return home to family. Young men participate, holding on to this lifeline that is keeping them from the street or the bottle. God is alive here.
Because spring is arriving and the weather welcoming, the streets are full of people moving about with pleasure and purpose. In the school fields of Jarvis Collegiate a pick-up cricket game is being played. It is played every day now since the weather has turned nice.
I don't understand cricket, nor why boys or anyone find it fun. It seems an interminable amount of standing around. In my hometown of Windsor, if you went to a specific park you could sometimes see the Caribbean teams in their dress-whites playing the game. Even more confusing is this habit of dressing all in white, which seems against all definitions of 'play' and 'fun'. The boys here are not dressed in white, and they are having fun playing cricket.
Confusion and mysteries (even small mysteries like cricket) are what life, and spring, are founded on. Thank the essence that is god.
posted by Kathy O'Brien at 6:31 pm
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