How the Parish came to be?
I happened to be a member of the Priests' Council in 2007 when Bishop John Boissonneau, as Bishop of Western Pastoral Region, tabled a motion to create a new parish west of Winston Churchill in the City of Mississauga. The priests voted unanimously in favour of the motion. On the first day of the Clergy Retreat of that year at the seminary, Msgr. Marco Laurencic, approached me and inquired if I would be interested. His opening statement was: "I heard some rumblings about you." "What rumblings?" I replied. For a moment I was scanning my life if I did something terribly wrong. After all, the good monsignor is the Director of Priests' Personnel in the Archdiocese. Then, he proceeded to tell me that my name has been floated as possible candidate for the new parish. "Would you be interested?" He inquired. I was a bit surprised. It was just a year before this event that I was appointed as Pastor of Blessed John XXIII Parish in Don Mills and in-charge of the Filipino Chaplaincy. "How can I say no to such an invitation?" I told the monsignor. "We will talk about it again in September." He replied.
I was at the Priests' Personnel Office in September of 2007 for some matters regarding the Filipino Chaplaincy when the Director revisited the question he posed to me a few months earlier. "How can I say no to such an invitation?" I replied again. He did not speak any further. A month later, Bishop John Boissonneau saw me at the Clergy Seminar in Nottawasaga and suggested that I speak to Monsignor Laurencic and tell him that if he is seriously considering me as founding pastor I should be appointed already even if the appointment will only take effect in July of 2008. The bishop was of the opinion that if I received the appointment early, I would be able to do the preliminary work of establishing the parish and at the same time completing the work at Blessed John XXIII. I went to Msgr. Laurencic to tell him what the bishop told me. I did not hear from the Priests' Personnel until the beginning of January of 2008.
Meanwhile, I was mulling for the name of the Parish to propose to the Archbishop. I came to know from Bishop Boissonneau that the Episcopal Board would like to honour recently canonized saints as Titular patrons. St. Josephine Bakhita stood out among the saints I was considering. I was quite surprised when His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI presented her as "a model of hope for the twenty-first century" in his encyclical "Spe Salvi." I took it as a sign of Divine Providence and wrote a letter to Archbishop Thomas Collins petitioning him to name the new parish to St. Josephine Bakhita - that was in December 2007.
In January of 2008, I got a call from Msgr. Laurencic to nominate three saints to the archbishop so that the latter would be able to create the new parish and appoint me as founding pastor. So I wrote the archbishop again and reiterated what I said in my letter in December. Shortly thereafter, the Decree was signed and I got the appointment.
I was faced with a dilemma. How can I prepare the groundwork and keep it underwraps until it's official publication in May? Quietly, I went to work: identifying and purchasing the house that will serve as rectory and office, contacting and arranging for a school to celebrate Holy Mass with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board, contacting the principals of the four grade schools and one high-school to notify them of what is to come, contacting the pastors of the two parishes we were to be carved from and arranging for me to invite prospective parishioners from their pulpits. I contacted Deacon Barry and Sheila Wood to join me in the work, to name a few.
By the beginning of June I was ready to move in to the rectory and by the second week of July we launched the Parish with four Masses at St. Joan of Arc Secondary School