BIG C CATHOLICS

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Homily for the Ascension of the Lord, June 1, 2025, Year C

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The nights are warm now. Sometimes I step outside and looking up marvel at all of those stars sprinkled all over the night sky. In such moments I have asked myself if there is another parallel universe that we don’t see, one that has other dimensions not subject to human measurements of time, space, weight and volume. I think there is. Because of Jesus Christ I am certain there is. A long time ago there lived in England a holy man named St. Bede. He lived from 673-735A.D. Among the things he wrote are the following words he penned while meditating on the death of loved ones. “We seem to give them back to you, O God, who gave them first to us. Yet as you did not lose them in giving, so we do not lose them by their return. Not as the world gives do you give. What you give you do not take away. For what is yours is also ours. We are yours and life is eternal. And love is immortal, and death is only a horizon, a...

Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism Fr. Anthony Pillari JCL, MCL, STD Lesson 5: On Our First Parents and the Fall Welcome again to Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism for our fifth lesson – On Our First Parents and the Fall. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. O Jesus, I choose to live this day, for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Amen. We heard in our last lesson how the angels fell through disobedience. Unfortunately, our first parents fell in the same way. Have you ever felt within yourself something pushing you to do evil? For example, maybe there was a time when you promised your parents you were not going to fight with your brothers. You were going to be calm; you were not going to say bad words. And then, just a day or two later, you find yourself getting angry over nothing, maybe getting in a fight, or saying something you shouldn’t have sa...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) There are times when we tell ourselves that nothing’s new, that human nature doesn’t change, and that history simply repeats itself. The Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes tells us: What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun . [Ecclesiastes 1:9] Yet we also find ourselves seeking what is new. We greet each other with the question “What’s new?” We watch TV news, read newspapers, pay attention to advertisements, and look for new models of things we already have. Advertisements are loaded with words telling us of new products, or “new and improved” products that we can’t live without. The world of computers is filled with new gadgets, new programs, new downloads, and so forth. We seem to be obsessed with what’s new. Jesus used the word “new” many, many times in His discourses and teachings, all the time trying to get us to see the new creation, the new ...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) There are any number of words and phrases that we use so often that we no longer pay attention to their content. Take the Lord’s Prayer for instance. What do we really mean when we address God as our Father? Who do we include in our ; who do we exclude from our ? Today we just heard a phrase that we heard so many times: “Christ is the Good Shepherd who cares for his flock.” But what kind of a flock is it? Evidently it is made up of different kinds of sheep. There is a unity in God’s flock but there is diversity also, otherwise why would the Good Shepherd be going out looking for other sheep that Jesus indicates to be “not of this flock”? We value unity while at the same we value diversity. It’s a nice ideal but it is a difficult reality to attain. We have only to look at the problem of unity and diversity as we find it both in our own country and in our Church. “Who’s in and who’s out?” is the big issue ...

With the death of Pope Francis, there is much speculation about who will emerge from the College of Cardinals . A popular saying in Vatican circles is that if you “enter a conclave as pope, you leave as a cardinal.” Within 20 days of the pope’s death, a conclave consisting of 120 cardinals out of the 138 who are under age 80 and can vote will gather at the Vatican to pick his replacement. The new pontiff could come from Africa, Italy, or Sri Lanka — possibly even America — but it’s likely that whoever is elected to follow Pope Francis, who died Monday at age 88, will move the Catholic Church back to the ideological center. Here is a list of the "papabile" cardinals who are his possible successors. Cardinal Luis Tagle, 67 The outgoing and personable Tagle, from the Philippines, would appear to be Francis’ pick for the first Asian pope. Francis brought the popular archbishop of Manila to Rome to head the Vatican’s missionary evangelization office, serving the needs of the C...