BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) There’s a lot of skepticism in our world these days. We are skeptical about the war in Iraq: Is it a war against radical Islamic fundamentalism or is it a war between Arab and Western cultures? Is our political process for the election of our presidents fundamentally flawed? Just what is the role of our nation’s Supreme Court and our Constitution? Has globalization doomed the future of American jobs? Will what we have known to be marriage be radically morphed into a variety of mere civil unions? This skepticism is more than simple doubting or questioning. Skepticism cuts into reality itself. As he conducted his trial of Jesus Christ, Pontius Pilate asked, “Truth? What is truth?” That was not the question of a person who is genuinely looking for an answer. That was the question of a skeptic. Questioners are less radical. One asks a question because one has faith that there is an answer. A question is a quest ...

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...

Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism Fr. Anthony Pillari JCL, MCL, STD Lesson 4: On Creation Welcome to the fourth lesson of Our Lady of the Rosary Family Catechism – On Creation. 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. In the very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, we read the following: "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. The earth was empty and darkness covered it. And the Spirit of God moved over the waters. On the first day, God said, 'Let there be light,' and He created light. He separated the light from the darkness and called the light day, and the darkness night. The second day, God separated the waters below from the waters above, thus creating the sky, and called it heaven. And on the third day, God said, 'Let the waters that are u...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) We have come here to this sacred place, in this holy time, both of which are set apart from the rest of the world around us, in order to hear what God is saying to us. We are here, hopefully, to respond to God’s call, to surrender to God’s love, and to receive the Bread of Life Jesus won for us on His Cross. May you, and I with you, now yield to God’s love and respond to the gift He offers us here in this the most important celebration in our Church. As Catholics, we hold a sacred trust. It is our calling to remain integral with the Church of the eyewitnesses of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Catholics, our integration with the Church of the Apostles is something that we hold precious. May we receive and always treasure what they have handed on to us. More people come to Mass on Easter than on any other Sunday of the year, some making the effort only this one time each year. The possi...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Once again, the Book of Life is opened, and the Liturgy calls us to recognize ourselves and recognize our God. Once again, the Church places the Passion of our Lord before our eyes. In it we can see ourselves and see God’s only begotten Son in our humanity, this time in man’s inhumanity toward man. The same roles are there; the same actors, the same forces at work in our world just as they were in the year 33A.D. First there are the indifferent, the easy-going, those who simply drift uncaring through life, those who give consent to the Passion by silence. There are millions and millions in this majority. They wash their hands of the whole thing. They never budge as long as the blows of life fall on the backs of others. They have no opinions to voice, no stand to take. They simply let events take their course. These silent ones let the sufferings and the crucifixions of God’s sons and daughters continue unche...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) High up on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, Michelangelo’s magnificent painting depicts the Creation Account found in the Book of Genesis. In Michelangelo’s depiction God’s finger reaches out to touch Adam’s finger. Into Adam’s already perfectly created body, God is about to endow Adam with an immortal soul. The hand of God is limpid, relaxed. God’s finger is beckoning, not accusing, gentle, not harsh. Recently I found a copy of that painting and meditated for a while on what was transpiring. God’s creation of all else had been completed – this was His final and highest act of creation. Adam’s body had been brought into being. It now was about to receive an immortal soul and thenceforth all of Adam’s descendants would, because of him, be born with immortal souls. God’s profound and infinitely generous love was about to be given to us, His creatures brought into being from the slime of the ea...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) There are three characters that in this parable Jesus is asking us to examine. Actually, Jesus is presenting them to us so that we might take a look at ourselves in them. How does each one of these characters mirror us, reflect back to us our attitudes and our condition relative to God? Parables invite us to enter into the actors and see ourselves in them. The first is the younger son. It’s important for us to pay attention to his fundamental condition in which we must see ourselves. The first thing to see is his radical departure from God our Father. When he asks for his inheritance, he isn’t just asking for a big sum of money. He is in effect saying to his father: “I’m treating you as if you’re dead. And I want to get now what I’m supposed to receive after you’re dead.” How many people do you know who live and act as if God is dead… as if God may as well be dead? Or how often have we had an “attitude” to...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) In our newspapers we read of disasters and watch catastrophes on television. And we deal with painful tragedies in the lives of our friends and loved ones, and ask: “Where is God?”, “How can God allow these things to go on?” It is implicitly the question put to Jesus in this Gospel account dealing with the fact that the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, the same one who condemned Jesus to be crucified, murdered a number of Jews in Jerusalem while they worshipped! He mingled their blood with the blood of their temple sacrifices. It was a terribly shocking thing to do, to say the very least. Some people explain away tragedies by telling us that it is sinners who suffer tragedies. Tragedies, they claim, are God’s way of punishing us for our sins, justified punishments from God inflicted upon us for our sins. That, of course, may or may not be true. Why? Because bad things happen to good people –people wh...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) We hear a lot about the high cost of living. Today I’d like to turn the phrase a bit and share some thoughts with you about the high cost of transformation. Becoming someone greater than we are now does not come freely or easily… it comes at a great price, a price that takes us out of our comfort zones. We all know that nothing in this life, except perhaps love, comes to us free. And we all know that the really valuable things in life cost us in terms of our own personal efforts. So, too, the cost of transformation demands its price for us to pay. You and I live in a time in which excellence and perfection are much sought after when it comes to material things, but are ignored when it comes to spiritual things. It is a great American goal to have a perfect body. To be physically attractive is something that’s constantly put in front of us in all of the media images we receive. But how many of those physica...

Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Oscar Wilde was a much-celebrated Anglo-Irish literary figure, very witty… and very worldly. He once wrote: “I can resist everything but temptation.” He lived in total self-indulgence, ridiculed Victorian moral norms, and died in Paris of meningitis in the year 1900. His view of life aptly ushered in the 20th century, particularly the cultural rebellions of the 1960’s and 1970’s. There are many today who live as Oscar Wilde lived. They regard temptations as irrelevant, things representing what they regard as hypocritical middle class moral norms, norms that constrict us and deny us our freedom. We are to live, many claim, with only one self-indulgent moral norm: “If it feels good, do it. Anything is all right so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.” We could spend hours talking about questions dealing with the nature of evil. What is evil? What is the essence of evil? Why is there evil, anyway? My summary view...