Fr. Ryan returned to Vancouver on Sept. 15th to begin his new assignment as Pastor for the Divine Mercy Quasi Parish and Chaplain for the Royal Columbian Hospital. Father is in residence at St. Michael The Archangel Parish in Burnaby.
Sunday Mass for the present will remain at Holy Spirit Parish at the usual time of 12:30 p.m. and daily Masses are at St. Michael’s Church at 8:00 a.m. Monday to Saturday.
The mysterious Providence of God in permitting the Traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated at St. Michael’s does not escape our notice. After Fr. Neilson, Fr. Ashley, Fr. Tepoorten and Fr. Parsons left Vancouver in the mid 1980’s to begin the Oratory in Ottawa a number of families from Fr. Neilson’s St. Pius X Parish in North Vancouver attended a Latin Novus Ordo Mass for a number of years at St. Michael’s Church. Our Pastor at the time was Fr. Newman. St. Michael’s was also where we met many other Traditional Catholic families. We deepened our Faith and began to seriously consider the possibility of again having access to the Traditional Mass.
The Vancouver Traditional Mass Society was conceived and founded towards the end of our time at St. Michael’s and from here Archbishop Carney was petitioned for the Traditional Mass. In 1988 Archbishop Carney permitted the Vancouver Traditional Latin Mass Community to have a Traditional Latin Mass at Holy Spirit Parish and today 11 years later we are again returning to St. Michael’s for daily Mass.
With gratitude we recall Christ’s words "Amen, Amen I say to you. If you ask the Father anything in My name He will give it to you. Hitherto you have not asked anything in My name. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full” (Jn. 16 23-24). These were the words with which we began our novena to the Holy Souls petitioning them intercede on our behalf and to obtain for our community: full access to the liturgy of Holy Mother Church as set out in the pre-Vatican II liturgical books with all the Sacraments in the Traditional Rite; access to full parish life with the establishment of a 'quasi' parish for the Latin Mass Community; and a Priest from the Fraternity of St. Peter be permitted to minister to our needs. We promised them a monthly Mass and Fr. Ryan will be offering the first Friday of every month for the release and relief of the Holy souls in Purgatory.