A 50th Anniversary Celebration

Today we Daughters of St. Paul in Toronto celebrated our community's 50 year presence in the city and Archdiocese of Toronto. We celebrated first with a joyous Mass at our parish Church of St. Charles Borromeo at the corner of West Lawrence and Dufferin in Toronto. Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic was the main celebrant with four other priests and two deacons present. Sister Hosea Maria cantored for the Mass. A few other of our Sisters joined the choir especially for the Communion hymns.
The church was packed. Two Daughters of St. Paul from Montreal joined us as well as our provincial superior, Sister Margaret Christopher Meagher and one of her councilors, Sister Mary Martha Moss.
Many lay people and Sisters from other communities came to celebrate in the reception held after Mass in our hall under our book center. The crowd was definitely multi-cultural, and very happy. It was a joy to see so many people coming from many parts of Canada to support us in our mission of media evangelization. Lots of folks who are weekly, some even daily visitors to our Centre were present.
An unexpected but very welcome surprise occured during the party with the arrival of three authentic "Mariachi's" from Mexico. With two guitars and a small accordian and great voices, the gentlemen with the broad-brimmed sombreros played for more than an hour. Sisters and laity joined hands and danced to their music. There were definitley a "hit."
I will try to upload a few seconds of video so you can see them.
Today is also the 92nd anniversary of the founding of the congregation of priests and brothers called The Society of St. Paul. Since they were the first of the Pauline Family, in one way it is also a double anniversary for us.