Services

Sunday worship at St. Matthias centres on two services, both taken from the Anglican "Book of Alternative Services", with a celebratory service at the main, 10:30 a.m. service (usually p. 185), and a traditional one at the 8 a.m. service (usually p. 230). There is also a 10 a.m. service on Thursdays in the chapel.

Music

Music with choir and organ is an important feature of the main service, which is followed by coffee and fellowship in the church hall. Worship is also enhanced by the beauty and serenity of the surroundings, with the large stone church on the brow of a hill surrounded by gardens tended by parishioners and, inside, graced by magnificent stained-glass windows and the work of both the Altar Guild and the Ecclesiastical Arts Guild.

Participation

Many dedicated parishioners offer their services as sidespersons, intercessors and readers at the two Sunday services. As well, many do double duty in other church capacities (for example, as choir members and servers). New people are welcomed.

                                                                    The plants from our Easter garden were given to children at the Easter service and taken to parishioners who are shut in.

Major Melbourne O’Halloran, known to his friends as ‘Happy’ was born in 1893. He grew up in Ottawa. He joined the Canadian army during World War I in 1915 when he was 22 years old. He fought in the trenches in France as part of the 7^th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery.

These men had responsibility for the cannons and the horses that pulled them and for firing the cannons. ‘Happy’ won a medal called the Military Cross in 1917 as a lieutenant, for “gallantry under fire”.

After the war, in 1919, he was sent with his men to keep peace in Germany and Belgium, as part of the ‘army of occupation’. During that time the men who fought under him designed these empty shell casings and gave them to him as a gift. You can see the dove of peace and the Canadian maple leaf.