It is my sincere pleasure serving as Principal St. Gabriel Catholic School and I look forward to working with parish, parents, staff and students. I immediately recognized what a wonderfully warm place St. Gabriel was (and is) when I first step foot on the grounds and was welcomed and greeted by sunny smile, laughter and signing – a safe, accepting environment where students can surely meet their full potential. In fact, while safe schools and discipline continue to be a priority, our main objective at St. Gabriel is to foster a strong partnership of home, school and parish, where our students grow emotionally, intellectually, socially and most importantly spiritually.
The diversity of St. Gabriel school community is very reflective of our beautiful city of Toronto – multicultural and multilingual. There are 29 different countries and 17 different languages represented here at St. Gabriel. Throughout the year, we look forward to recognizing and celebrating the different cultures represented at our school.
“There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.” Corinthians: 12:12-14
And yet, regardless of our diversity, we share in common one characteristic, our Catholic Faith. The Toronto Catholic District School Board launched a three-year pastoral plan last September: “Together With One Voice: Harmonizing Our Faith through Family, Parish and School.” Last year’s focus was ‘the family’, this year our focus is ‘parish’. We are so very fortunate to have a parish who enthusiastically reaches out to support the St. Gabriel school community. We look forward to working with the parish to nurture and support our students as they continue in their faith journey.
St. Gabriel, where students achieve academic success in faith … Via Veritas Vita!
C. Crispo