September 10th: Start-Up Sunday
St. Matthias’ was officially founded as a mission of St. George’s, Place du Canada, in 1873, which means our community is 150 this year! For the next 12 months, we’ll be diving into the archives to shine the spotlight on particularly interesting parts of our history.
An advertisement for Start-Up Sunday from an early 1990s edition of the Westmount Examiner.
Start-Up Sunday, known affectionately by the current rector as “Hot Dog Sunday,” is one of St. Matthias’ newest traditions, started in the late 1980s by then-rector Rev. Paul James. Jane Needles-Bradley recalls that it was initially “an effort to ensure that people in church and beyond knew what the various committees and groups did in and for the church and the parish,” and featured presentations during the service. It didn’t stay that way for long, however!
The presentations, however, made the service so long that any value added by presenting the work of various of St. Matthias’ committees was lost, and within a few years Start-Up Sunday evolved into a barbecue. For a long time, this barbecue was held in what is officially called the Curate’s Close and has unofficially been called Miss Vicky’s Playground, an interior courtyard between the church and the Upper Hall. These days, the event goes on downstairs in the Lower Hall, which has fewer wasps and less set-up hassle, and in recent years the St. Matthias’ Beer Saints have been responsible for barbecuing. On average, these days Matthians consume 200 cobs of corn, in addition to barbecued goods, and of course it would not be a St. Matthias’ party without plentiful beer and wine!
Start-Up Sunday services, although they no longer have a presentation component, have perpetually been a spot where rectors innovate new ways of connecting the community. In 2010’s service, Rev. Ken Near celebrated a baptism, which provided an opportunity for the whole congregation to affirm their own baptismal vows together. When Fr. Patrick Wheeler arrived in 2015, he instituted a Blessing of the Backpacks liturgy, in which he solemnly and with great enthusiasm prays over backpacks, pencil cases, laptop bags, and briefcases, using plentiful amounts of holy water.