60 Years of Prayer and Service

By Gagandeep Ghuman
Published: May 15, 2015

The passage of time may have changed a lot at the St. Joseph’s Church of Squamish, but at least one thing has remained constant: The dedication of Catholic Women’s League members.
It’s been nearly 60 years since the Catholic Women’s League was established in the St. Joseph Church and many of its old and new members are inspired everyday by its ideals. Addie Harrison came to Squamish in 1954 with her husband Peter Harrison and has been a member of Catholic church ever since the faithful gathered at a smaller church on Fourth Ave. When the new church was built in 1991 on the Boulevard in the Highlands, Harrisons pitched in with fundraising along with other members.
Before the CWL started, there was a women’s Altar Society which helped with church duties. Later, it became the CWL and Addie was one of the 30 women who joined it when it was formed in 1956.The friendships she developed over the years have withstood the test of time.
“If I need to talk to someone, these women are always there for me,” she says.
Like Addie, Mima Runza joined the Catholic Women’s League because she knew the power of community and the role women could play in it. Her mother, Winiferd Logie, had joined the CWL in 1924 in St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in her town of Vanguard. CWL provided women a network of support in that relatively isolated community and her mother encouraged her to join the CWL as she took leadership positions in it later in New Westminster.
CWL was organised nationally in 1920 and has enjoyed the patronage of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. The League’s motive is service to God and Canada. For local women’s leagues in cities and town across Canada that motive extends to service to God and to their own communities. Rooted in gospel values, the league calls upon its members to holiness and true service to the people of God, says Bonnie Stephens, the Squamish league president. Humility, love for fellow neighbours, reverence for God and choosing the right over wrong are the values that the members try to live by as they help each other, other church members and the whole community.
In the church, league members help in everyday chores, preparing coffee, sandwiches and cookies for church confirmation for students, celebrations and funerals for church members. Besides the ‘little things’, the women’s league is also involved in the community, fundraising for Canadian National Institute for the Blind and donating money to the local food bank, Squamish Hospital Foundation and the Annual Christmas Care. In November, they also organise a Christmas bazaar, which raised $4,000 last year which was donated to local charities.
The brick-and-mortar symbol of the women’s league can be found on Cleveland Ave where they have run the St. Joseph CWL Thrift Store for 47 years. The store sells clothes and other goods donated by church and community members at an affordable price, and even give away things free when a local family needs it during emergency such as a fire or a flood.
Catholic Women’s Leagues has 10,000 members in BC alone. The ideals and the mission of the ministry knows no provincial or national boundaries. In 1922, merely two years after its inception, Canadian Catholic Women’s League contributed $125,000 for the work of missions and immigration. In 1960, the World Refugee Year, the league contributed $62,740 to aid in bringing refugees to Canada, and from 1979 to 1989, gave $425, 281 to development and peace, which later became a CWL fund.
CWL has also been politically active, taking stances on issues such as right to life, human rights, pornography, child care and euthanasia. For Squamish CWL vice-president Joan Wippich, being part of the league is empowering because it allows her voice in Squamish to amplify national issues she feels strongly about.
There are 41 members in the Catholic Women’s League. Jaymee Cruz is one of the younger members who joined the league last year after she saw the selfless service provided by the women in the church and the community. She was specially touched when the church prepared lunch for 200 people at the funeral service of her father-in-law.
Cruz grew in the absence of her mother but she feels that has been compensated by the motherly love receives from CWL members. “I feel empowered and inspired to be among these powerful women,” she says.