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Gertrude and Frank McGartland

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As children, we respected the values taught by our parents – family, faith, education, respect for others, honesty, acceptance of God’s plan – and now as adults, we pray that we have passed these values on to our children and grandchildren. 

  • Faith – we grew up in Northern Ireland where religion and politics were so closely entwined. We were catholic, not only by faith but by everything in our lives. Our strong faith was exampled by our parents. We prayed the rosary daily and appreciated that we were able to attend Catholic schools. We are very blessed at Holy Spirit to have a beautiful parish family where we feel connected and can continue following our faith journey. 
  • Family – Desmond Tutu wrote: “You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them”. Our parents embodied the statement – “the family that prays together, stays together”.  We realize that “staying together” doesn’t mean living next door or in the same city as each other.  We have lived in Canada now for over fifty years.  Our siblings all live in Ireland and one daughter Roisin and husband Mark live in Ontario.  We connect weekly with our family in Ireland and daily with our daughters and their families.  We must say, we thank God every day to have a daughter Sinead, her husband Jeremy and our two granddaughters Keara and Marin living here in Saskatoon. Thank God for technology – we are able to “stay together” by Skype and Zoom and the old-fashioned telephone. 
  • Friends –these are the people in our lives who want us in theirs. We are very fortunate to have different groups of friends – we often joke and say, we have our Irish friends, our Canadian friends, our parish friends, our former work friends, our neighbor friends old and new, and in-law friends from both daughters’ marriages. We value all these friendships since they are part of our journey in life and they make us feel loved and very connected. 
  • Quality of Life –can be defined as the degree to which an individual is healthy, happy, comfortable and able to participate in and enjoy life’s events. We know we have a great quality of life – we are happy, we are aging gracefully and are healthy. We live comfortably and participate and enjoy many activities in life. 

Lent is the season of preparation for Easter and the resurrection of Jesus.  We read with interest in the parish bulletin that Lent is not about “what you give up” but about one’s journey and experience in prayer.  Holy Spirit bulletins are full of reflections and links to enable us to do this.  Especially at this time, Lent reminds us to reach out and connect with those in need in our community – the elderly, the shut-ins, the poor and the suffering.

Belonging to Holy Spirit parish is all about our core values – we have our faith, family and friends there.

Well done Holy Spirit team.  We appreciate the parish staff who are welcoming and work very hard to maintain the activities of parish life in these difficult times.  We appreciate Fr. Darryl’s homilies (they are spiritual with great examples via common day activities), podcasts, reflections and his music.  We love being at mass with our family, especially our granddaughters, and we are very proud seeing them as altar servers. 

   

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