Father Bob Ouellette grew up in Holy Rosary Parish in the Bathurst and St. Clair area of Toronto. He was ordained in 1968 and has been pastor at St. Joseph's in Beaverton and St. Dominic's in Mississauga, associate pastor at Our Lady of Peace, Our Lady of Sorrows, Blessed Sacrament and St. Jane Frances parishes and was Secretary to Archbishop Pocock.

Father Bob attended St. Michael’s College School and the University of Toronto. He was headed for a career in dentistry when he “heard the call” and entered St. Augustine’s Seminary - choosing the pearly gates over pearly whites. When he discovered that following in the Saviour’s footsteps did not include the ability to walk on water, he took up boating. He now spends his summer holidays on his boat on Georgian Bay. In his spare time, he “religiously” does the Globe crossword puzzle and listens to opera.

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Father Miro came to Canada in 1979 having defected from the former Czechoslovakia. He was ordained deacon at Our Lady of Grace in Aurora in 1982 and a priest at St. Michael’s the next year. His ministry has taken him from Mississauga to Markham and from Vancouver Island to here in Newmarket. Not only does Fr. Miro bring an obvious love of people to the parish, but he can speak to them in a number of languages. You can confess your sins (or just converse) to Fr. Miro in Slovak (Czech), Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, a little German and, of course, English. Just to keep the parish amused, he makes an occasional English language error - like suggesting we light the Advent "Reef" or that we help ourselves to the "missiles" at the back of the church.

Miro keeps himself fit by spending his day off helping his mother on her small farm up north. Among other things they have grown vegetables, raised chickens, lambs, pigeons, ducks and bees. He loves good food and wine and on Madeleine’s day off he’s the chef-at-large in the rectory.

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Deacon Michael’s heritage stems from a small Christian community known as Anglo-Indians (AI’s), who were formerly English-speaking residents in the Indian region. AI’s are of European and Indian descent (hence his Spanish name Miranda), and started to immigrate to countries like Canada, UK, Australia, and USA after the partition of India in 1947.

His parents first moved to London, England, when he was three years old. He was educated there up to the end of high school. Sometime you might catch him singing, “Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner” with a cockney accent!

After his family moved to Canada, he attended University of Toronto, Mississauga and upon graduating, he worked for 30 years in the computer industry.

Michael and his wife Lynne were married in 1989. They have four wonderful children, Chris, Brittany, Jonathan and Michelle; they feel truly blessed.

On May 29, 2009, Michael was ordained at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto, by the then newly appointed Bishop Nguyen.

Deacon Michael loves soccer and coached his children for 15 years; he hung up his coaching hat last year because he felt that it would conflict with his ministry. He also enjoys music of all types (except Country and the harsh yelling kind), movies, a good book and Sudoku puzzles. He also loves to sample a variety of foods; his favourite is Indian of course!

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Deacon Gary joined St. Johns in the fall of 2012, as he moved out of Toronto to prepare for retirement. He was ordained in 1990 and the first 14 years of his ministry was as a hospital Chaplain in Toronto. For the next 7 years, he and his wife Helen served as a mentors in the formation program for the Permanent Diaconate at St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto.

Prior to joining St. John's, his parish base was Saint Aidan in Scarborough (Agincourt). He spent 30 years in the energy / environmental industry before leaving the corporate business world to do private consulting in Sustainability as well as teaching as Professor of Energy and Sustainability in the Centre for the Built Environment at Seneca College in Toronto.

Helen and Gary have five grown children and five grandchildren (so far…). They enjoy family time and travel - Helen to exotic places, and Gary to anywhere his '99 Miata can take him.

Gary's interests are varied, ranging from Scripture to ecoTheology to Quantum Theology (exercise for the brain!). He also tries to keep his blog (www.deacongary.net) up to date! But his real joy is working with people, and being of service to them.

Go to
Deacon Gary's Blog
Reflexions

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Christine Way Skinner has been the catechist at our parish since 1998. After many years of preparing the children of our parish for their sacraments, parents and students alike have come to trust Christine and all the knowledge she has to offer. If you ever have question about Catholicism but were afraid to ask - she is the one to see. Don't let the fact that she is smaller than most of her students fool you. Christine grew up on a farm near Kingston, Ontario and pursued her education at Queen's, St. Francis Xavier (BA), Harvard Divinity School (MDiv) and Regis College (a yet-to-be-completed PhD).

She has worked at St. Paul’s in Cambridge, MA, Our Lady of the Airways in Mississauga and the Catholic Information Centre in Toronto. She is married to Michael, who is the Religion Department Head at Sacred Heart. You will see them sitting at the front of the church on Sundays with their six children, hoping that all those sitting behind, watching them try to keep everyone in line, may offer a prayer or two on their behalf! Christine's hobbies include: art, music, gardening, calligraphy, reading, stamp collecting, talking and playing with her kids.

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Christine Allen began working at St. John’s as the parish secretary in the Fall of 2009. Since her arrival, with her trusty label maker at her side, the parish centre has been thoroughly ordered, categorized and, for the benefit of others who are more organizationally challenged, labelled. Christine’s editing and proofreading skills are second to none, so she is well equipped to handle the weekly parish bulletin. As well, the parish can now confidently offer service in German and French as well as English, as she brings her fifteen years experience as a professional translator to us.

If her organizational, editorial and linguistic skills did not convince Father Bob that she was up to the job of parish receptionist, her experience of running a household and raising two boys - Cameron and Drew - certainly would have done so.

Christine also brings with her a solid knowledge of local Catholic history. Having grown up in the small French Canadian village of Penetanguishene, Christine met her husband David while they were both historical interpreters at Ste. Marie among the Hurons in Midland. After Christine graduated from Laurentian University in Sudbury, she and David married and moved to Toronto before moving to Newmarket in 1989 to raise their family.

In her spare time, you will most likely find Christine shopping at Michael’s, making elaborate birthday cards with her Cricut machine, organizing her stamp and PEZ collections, gardening or raising her Monarch butterflies.

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David Jafelice has been involved in parish music ministry since the 70s. His involvement in Toronto’s liturgical music community extends far beyond the music itself. For many years David served on the executive board of the Liturgical Musicians Association. More recently, he provided design, typesetting and layout services for their quarterly newsletter Laudemus. David has delivered workshops for church musicians and has also written for the National Bulletin on Liturgy published by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is a graduate of St. Michael's Choir School and the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music where he studied organ and conducting.

David founded the Anno Domini Chamber Singers and served as its conductor from 2000 to 2005. He has held the position of Director of Music at St. John’s since June 1999 where he shares his musical talent and liturgical expertise.

David also created and manages this website. He is a free lance musician in the Toronto Archdiocese and is a musician of great versatility. His repertoire ranges from the more traditional liturgical music he loves, to that which he will endure under duress, such as the questionable but much beloved by some Eucharist favourite - "The Belonging Song".

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Joyce Upjohn has been a member of this parish since the day she was baptised here as an infant. (Joyce wasn't forthcoming about the actual year!) She has lived and worked in Newmarket all her life - fourteen years of which she spent working as receptionist and secretary at St. John's. Since her retirement, she has continued to work in the office on Fridays. Her hobbies include spending time with friends and family, reading, and chauffeuring her aged dog, Angel, back and forth to the vet. Joyce has three children (two girls and a boy), three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

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If the church is decorated beautifully, you can bet that Madeleine Burke had a hand in it. Madeleine moved to Toronto from England as young child. Then, when she was eleven, she moved to Newmarket where she has lived ever since. Here she married life-long Ontario Street resident Ivan Burke with whom she had two children (Erin & Brendan). She attended the original St. John Chrysostom Elementary School (located at our current parish centre) and St. Joseph's Morrow Park High School. Madeleine is a woman of many, many talents. She has worked as in professions ranging from real estate to restaurant manager, but her well-rounded career begins and ends here on Ontario Street. She began her working life as a secretary and bookkeeper for the Newmarket Separate School Board in 1968 in the building that now houses the parish centre. Since 1993, she has worked as the parish housekeeper (or, more accurately - domestic engineer). She has been a member of the Catholic Women's League since 1979, and was also their North York Regional Chair. In her spare time she sews, cooks, paints, gardens, and reads.

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Camera shy, Leo Lopez shares a common occupational inclination with Father Bob. Back in Nicaragua, where he was born, he, too, studied to be a dentist. This career was cut short when he emigrated to Canada in 1987. He became a Canadian citizen in the spring of 2004. Since 1990, Leo has been caretaker at St. John's and is well on his way to canonization because of the way he cheerfully and willingly takes care of everyone’s messes around the church! His other interests include weightlifting, boxing, and baseball. Leo’s idea of heaven is a banquet of juicy 12 oz steaks and a huge dessert table after which someone else cleans up. He has three children and a wife, Marilei. In 2005, he became the proud grandparent of his first grandchild - Salma.

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