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Children
Sunday School - weekly during the 11a.m. service. 4+ yr olds using the SPARK curriculum and other material.
Children start with a message in the church, gather downstairs for candle lighting and prayer and return later after classes for communion with their parish family. There is an unsupervised nursery for 0-3 yr olds with change table.
Adults
Tuesday Bible Study – last Tuesday of every month 7:30p.m. Contact the office for more details 705 254 1692
Adult Discussion Evenings - The lenten Study in 2012 beginning on Tuesday 28th February 7p.m. in the Savela Room at Holy Trinity (Wednesdays 7p.m. the following weeks) is based on the book and DVD by Adam Hamilton '24 Hours That Changed The World' .
Whether you are a long-time Christian or simply curious, you are invited to come along and retrace the last 24 hours of Jesus' life. Adam Hamilton is a pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, one of the fastest growing in the US and has written extensively.
Guild of St Joseph (Men’s Fellowship) -Last Saturday of each month 8:30-10a.m.– a hearty and full breakfast with a reflection and discussion to follow.
Fed and Forgiven – a course to start in the winter of 2012 for children Grade 1+ about the meaning and significance of Holy Communion.
As preparation for baptism and weddings there is interactive material and helpful guidelines as well as a rehearsal.
For any further information on any of the above call 705 254 1692
Will the real Valentine please stand up?????
The name "Valentine"(Latin Valentinus) derived from valens (worthy, strong, powerful). There is a lot of debate and disagreement among scholars about the origins of Valentine’s Day. We’ll probably never be able to reconstruct a complete and coherent story.
We know that the Romans celebrated the Feast of Lupercalia Feb 13th-15th in honour of the god Lupercus, to avert evil spirits and purify the city and release health and fertility.
Where does Christianity come in ??
One version is that Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. When Valentine tried to convert Claudius to Christianity he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.
This version was embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused a law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single believing that married men did not make good soldiers. The priest Valentine secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. While awaiting execution, young lovers visited him with notes about how much better love is than war — the first “valentines.”
There is an additional modern embellishment that before Valentine was to be executed, he wrote the first "valentine" card himself, addressed to a young girl identified as his beloved, as the jailer's daughter whom he had befriended and healed, or both. It was a note that read "From your Valentine." He was eventually beheaded Feb 14th and buried on the Via Flaminia.
Pope Gelasius in the 5th century declared February 14th a holy day in honour of Valentinus. This allowed Christianity to take over some of the celebrations of love and fertility which had previously occurred in the context of paganism.
The romantic emphasis of Valentine’s Day didn't come until the Middle Ages, and then of course it was heightened by 18th-century romanticism and by Hollywood and consumerism. As Christians we need to reclaim Valentine’s Day not with a narrow emphasis on romantic couple love but on love of neighbour as seen in the love of Jesus.
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