Reverend Clarence Li is presiding.
A recorded sermon on the Ascension of Christ by Archbishop John Stephens will be shared.
To stream the Sunday service click here
the PASSCODE is 123.
Meeting ID: 849 3747 0476
The Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, its full-communion partner, are inviting members of both Churches to observe Jerusalem and Holy Land Sunday on the Seventh Sunday of Easter every year. This observance was started years ago as a call to action for Anglicans and Lutherans in Canada to stand in partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan & the Holy Land. Through worship, learning and giving, congregations are invited to support God’s healing mission, especially the critical health care services offered in the region. In light of the continued plight in Gaza and the Holy Land, we shall focus our prayers on the deliverance of all those who have been harmed by the ongoing violence and a resolve from all parties to build lasting peace with justice for Palestinians and Jews who call this Land their home.
An Invitation for Solidarity from Jane Alexander,
Canadian Companions of Jerusalem Advisory Council member
The profound prayer of Jesus from today’s Gospel reading calls us to be a people of hope, a people that can look beyond the horizon to what might be possible and to what God desires. Innocent children throughout the Holy Land have paid a terrible cost in this war. This year the Canadian Companions of Jerusalem invite you to join in creating a foundation for their healing. This healing will need to be in body, mind and spirit and is a complex task. The focus of the project will be on the children of Gaza through the work of the Jerusalem Princess Basma Centre (JPBC). The Diocese of Jerusalem’s ministry includes parishes, hospitals, clinics and rehabilitation centres of which the JPBC is one.
More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, many of those children. With homes and infrastructure flattened, nearly 2 million people have been displaced, forced to face extreme hunger and disease in overcrowded shelters. We've seen the same trend of death, destruction and displacement in Lebanon too. (Christian Aid 2025) Providing rehabilitation services to the children of Gaza was always difficult, but now and going into the future it is doubly so.
The Jerusalem Princess Basma Centre itself is located on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. It started operating in 1964. Since then, the Centre has treated thousands of Palestinian children with disabilities, while hosting their mothers and empowering their families. It is a charitable, nongovernmental, non-profit organization operating under the Anglican Episcopal Church within the Diocese of Jerusalem. You can read more about it here on their website: https://www.basmacentre.org
This year, 2025, the special project for this Jerusalem and the Holy Land Sunday is to ensure one pediatrician completes an accredited training fellowship and supervised placement in pediatric rehabilitation to enable JPBC to continue its work in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
In times such as these we cry out in horror at what we have seen and we ask what we can do when the needs are so great. This is a place to start, to acknowledge the needs yes, but then to imagine a future where the children of Gaza can be helped on a healing path.
The theologian Karl Barth said that every time we put our hands together to pray –we are rising up in solidarity against the disorder of the world. We all know that the world, and indeed the church – can be disorderly sometimes, the spirit is in us inspiring us to prayer, Jesus is beside us encouraging us to speak to our Father in heaven, our friends in our church family support us, all these things can help us bring order to disorder and calm our hearts in the midst of these times. Let Jesus’ Ancient words resound in your heart. This Sunday will you pray with us, will you hope with us and will you act with us for the future of God’s dream. Know that we are called to such a time as this for the healing of the children of Gaza.