Parish celebrates 50 years

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

While we’ve been hearing numerous news reports on how Quebecers are straying away from the church, the Corpus Christi parish has been growing. The parish – which covers Baie d'Urfé, Ste. Anne de Bellevue and Senneville – is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and Rev. Joseph Sullivan is looking forward to a bright future.

“In the past couple of years, we’ve nearly doubled in size. We currently have about 300 families,” said Sullivan, who has been with the parish since 2005. “There’s been a lot of movement into the area, especially young families.”

The parish has seen many highlights over the past 50 years, including successful Christmas collections for the needy and working together with St. George’s Anglican in St. Anne de Bellevue, and St. Gile’s Presbyterian in Baie d’Urfé during the 1980s and 90s. In 1988 Corpus Christi and St. Gile’s sponsored two refugee women, a 30 year-old refugee from Iran and a 21 year-old Vietnamese girl, together. A huge milestone took place in 1993, when Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte visited Corpus Christi for the Mass of Dedication and Consecration. The parish’s community has also always been deeply involved, whether it is Sunday School for the children, various fundraising events, and the popular NovemberFest, among others.

“It’s a very welcoming parish, I have to say,” Sullivan said proudly. While the church may be a hard one to find – it’s located on Pacific Avenue in Senneville, which often gets confused for nearby Pacifique Avenue in Ste. Anne de Bellevue – Sullivan said it is slowly being discovered. “Most of it is word of mouth. A lot of contact comes through parents in the school system.”

For the first half of its golden anniversary year, Sullivan said the parish will be looking back on the past 50 years, while the second half will focus on where it is going in the future. The next special mass will take place Sunday at 10 a.m., and will be held in memory of Father Myles Kelly.

“Everyone is welcome,” Sullivan said.

For more information on the parish, visit www.rc.net