Last year, on the Labour Day long weekend, our parish, St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Parish in Ottawa, Ontario celebrated Saint Phoebe Day at all the Sunday Masses. This journey began in January 2023 with a meeting with our parish priest, Father Vincent Pereira. Discerning Deacons had prepared us well to have this conversation.

 There was a small group of people who were willing to support this endeavor. In May, we held a presentation on “Enlarge the Space of Your Tent” which was well received. We had put posters all over the church (this is a fairly large church), advertised it in the parish bulletin and made verbal announcements just as mass was ending. Our Saint Phoebe Team, consisting of eight members, were engaged in something different and exciting.

In June we held a prayer service at the parish via Zoom. We also contributed short articles, regarding women in the Bible, to be published in the parish bulletin. The Prayers of the Faithful included something about the synod, women’s roles and participation in the church and just before the long weekend, our priest celebrant mentioned at Mass that Saint Phoebe is mentioned as a deacon in the Bible.

Come the Saint Phoebe Day Celebration, we were a bit nervous not knowing how it would be received. It was well received! St. Phoebe team member Lynn Lavictoire shared a reflection about Saint Phoebe at all the Sunday Masses. Our choir director had the congregation singing two Saint Phoebe hymns – we had put the words in the pews for people to sing along. The Saint Phoebe prayer cards were distributed and our community’s deacon led that prayer at the end of mass. Afterwards we celebrated with refreshments in the parish hall.

What surprised us, was that nobody was saying, “oh it’s a woman doing a reflection” instead what we heard was, “I didn’t know anything about Saint Phoebe”. We were pleased and delighted by our community’s response! 

Our celebration ended in November with a guest speaker, Dr. Catherine Clifford, a lay voting delegate at the October synod of bishops, and gave a presentation on her experience at the synod.

As a community, we learned a lot through this process and we are grateful to uplift St. Phoebe and women’s leadership in our own community. St. Phoebe, pray for us!