St. Stephen's - revisioning a parish

By Brian Welter
Special to The B.C. Catholic

In this series we profile parishes of the Archdiocese of Vancouver, emphasizing how the Archdiocesan Synod is being implemented at the local level.

Under pastor Father Peter Chiang, St. Stephen’s Parish has groups discussing implementation of the synod in the parish.

They are “discussing the character of St. Stephen’s Parish,” said Tobias Jesso, and this includes “issues of mission,” “overriding vision,” and “how do we now recommend the synod declarations?”
Jesso, a member of the parish for 25 years, said he prefers to work within the parish from one overriding vision based on the synod rather than select four or five areas of synod recommendations to focus on individually. Every parish activity, he suggested, needs to go through the prism of the synod’s “unitive vision,” as carried out with the pastoral committee.

Parish discussions are addressing the difference between the parish committee and the new synod-inspired pastoral committee. The first committee runs the administration and social side of the parish, while the second, which Father Chiang describes as a “think tank,” addresses spiritual needs.

Since a prayer group, the Legion of Mary, and a Bible study group already exist at the parish, Jesso thinks that the synod won’t revolutionize things at the parish. Rather, the synod will be “the cement that guides [St. Stephen’s] into the future,” as it acts as a “magnifying glass,” adding “some meaning into the parish.”

Vernon Robertson is a 28-year veteran of the parish who has spent considerable time working on issues of evangelization. “The parish is in a major transition,” he said. “It became an old parish very quickly: very few children.”

Part of the problem, in Robertson’s view, is the North Shore’s culture of “tremendous self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction in lifestyle”; it’s a “hard ground to come from maintenance to mission.”

“The question you need to ask,” said Robertson, “is where do you see the action of God in your parish at this time? We need to pray to see where the Lord’s vision is for His parish.”

Despite its older but lively demographic, the parish also has a Sunday Youth Mass and a youth group to live this new vision. Peter Horner, one of two youth ministry co-ordinators, has written that the group “varies from 5 to 25 youth depending on the popularity of the event, but they always walk away with smiles.

“We draw members from our parish PREP classes and extend the invitation to their friends. We make prayer a part of our events but we don’t discuss theology to any great length since they are mostly PREP students. Our primary goal is to involve the youth in a way that makes them feel at home in their parish community.”

The parish’s youth are led by the young-at-heart.

Though Father Chiang is 78, Jesso laughs, “I can’t keep us with this man.”

At a glance

• Year founded:
  1963

• Families:
  Just over 500

• Address:
  1360 E. 24 St.,
  North Vancouver, BC V7J 1R5

• Phone:
  604-985-1962

• E-mail / web site:
  office.steph@rcav.bc.ca;  http://ststephen.norvanfc.com

• Mass Times:
  Weekdays 8:30 a.m.; Sat. and holidays: 9 a.m.; Sun: 4:30 p.m. Sat., 8:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., and 6:30 p.m. Sun.

• Previous Pastors:
  1963 Father Albert Eisenring
  1969 Father David Monroe
  1970 Father John Swinkels
  1971 Father Lawrence Sabatini
  1978 Father Albert Corradin
  1982 Father William Kilty
  1992 Father William Mendenhall
  1993 Father Lawrence Holland
  2003 Father Peter Chiang

• Other:
  Divine Mercy Devotion beginning with Mass at 7 p.m. on the last Friday of the month. A grotto dedicated to Our Lady.

• Did you know?
  Two tapestries, one of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus and one of our patron, St. Stephen, which were hand-made in Germany, were presented to the parish by the people of Father Eisenring's village. The second is a modern interpretation of the martyrdom of St. Stephen.

Hard work turned swampland into beautiful setting

St. Stephen's is a relatively young parish, dating from 1963, so strong leadership, as well as the implementation of the synod, are important for defining the parish's character in the years ahead.

The parish's commemorative booklet, 1963-1988: Twenty-Five Years of Progress, relates that in 1963, before the present church building was constructed, Holy Mass was offered in the Lynn Valley Community Centre, the first time on Nov. 17.

"It was not the most comfortable or attractive setting in which to celebrate the Eucharist. Even incense could not hide the odours of tobacco and liquor which lingered in the air from Saturday night dances. The `comfortable pew' was a thing unknown."

"However, in spite of the difficulties, 400 people did attend Mass there, and a spirit of community quickly developed and grew." Father Albert Eisenring was the community's first priest.

The place where the church was built was no picnic site; it was swampland. "The swamp disappeared, but not overnight," the booklet notes. "It took hard work and 10 feet of fill. Trucks from all over converged on the swamp to dump their loads.

"The grounds were landscaped, with many work parties contributing hours on many weekends, to be filled at noon with the wonderful cooking of `Mama Sabatini.'" This was the mother of Father Lawrence Sabatini, an Italian-speaking Scalabrini priest later ordained an auxiliary bishop for Vancouver before being appointed Bishop of Kamloops.

At the parish's 25th anniversary Archbishop James Carney wrote, "I recall with gratitude the long and faithful service of your pastor, Father Kilty, his diocesan predecessors, and the decade of pastoral care given by the Scalabrini Fathers."

Scalabrinians, who have a special charism for immigrant communities, had gone to the North Shore at the request of Archbishop Carney in 1971, because of the rapidly growing number of Italian families.

An important figure of the 1980s was the late Father Bill Kilty, who himself came from North Vancouver, and whose late brother Father John Kilty had also joined the priesthood. The parish anniversary booklet highlighted Father Bill's work "with the sick and the elderly."

Of special note is the parish grotto "to honour Our Blessed Lady," the anniversary booklet says. The blessing of the grotto "was the first of many celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the parish. What better way to offer thanks to Mary for all her love and protection than to officially bless the newly-built grotto which was erected in her honour on the parish grounds."

Father Chiang will leave lasting legacy

Father Peter Chiang

Pastor Father Peter Chiang has been at St. Stephen's Parish for five years. He previously served for eight years at St. Paul's in Richmond, and at Holy Rosary Cathedral, St. Francis Xavier Parish, Vancouver General Hospital, and St. John the Apostle Parish for shorter periods of time.

Born in China and partly educated there, he studied for the priesthood in Spain, where he was ordained to the priesthood. He spent time after that in Italy, then, as a missionary priest, 10 20 years in Malaysia and 20 in Brunei. This year, Father Chiang claims, will be his last year of pastoral work.

His will be an important legacy. When he first arrived, he had a mural, which shows a few people moving towards Jesus on the Cross, done behind the altar, and he had the priest's chair moved to the side of the sanctuary so that the tabernacle could go in the centre behind the altar.

He also had the Stations of the Cross put into simple though handsome wooden frames and backgrounds, giving them much more importance and dignity.